For years, there have been many studies that have come out showing the benefits of children reading. As a parent, there’s no denying that reading has helped my children learn more about the world and themselves. Especially in the age of so much technology, there has been a push back to the simple such as reading with your kids before bed.  

Arnold Schwarzenegger doesn't own bitcoin, dogecoin, or any other cryptocurrencies. Warren Buffett might be the reason why. "I don't invest in them," he said in a recent New York Times interview. "I am like Warren Buffett. I don't invest in things I don't understand." Buffett famously operates within his "circle of competence," meaning he doesn't risk his money on assets he can't get his head around. The investor has repeatedly criticized bitcoin, calling it "rat poison squared" and a worthless delusion, and has ruled out ever owning crypto.

Image: Warren Buffett and Arnold Schwarzenegger. - https://markets.businessinsider.com

Consider the 21st century's most storied CEOs: Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos. All have one thing in common – not only did they run their companies, they founded them.

Each of these corporate leaders, in other words, had to deal with venture capital firms to find critical resources for their firm's success. And it didn't always end well. Jobs was famously fired when Apple's board replaced him with the former CEO of a soft drink company – a disaster from which Apple took years to recover.

To understand what was a risky venture in 19th-century America, visit the Whaling Museum in Nantucket. The industry thrived on this Massachusetts island, now transformed from an outpost for coarse sailors into a swanky beach spot. Two centuries ago, whales were valuable because of the lucrative oil in their head-cases. Captains amassed fleets of sloops and dozens of men armed with harpoons to hunt them. For lucky crews that found their “white whales” the rewards were enormous, but so were the risks of losing ships and souls in the hunt. In “Moby Dick” Herman Melville admonishes the reader: “for God’s sake, be economical with your lamps and candles! Not a gallon you burn, but at least one drop of man’s blood was spilled for it.”

Image: https://www.economist.com

Recent weeks have seen numerous calls for more investment in research and development (R&D) in the United States. This is understandable with a new administration that is friendlier to science and with The Endless Frontier Act—a measure that could double the budget of the National Science Foundation in 5 years—under consideration in Congress. Proponents of the bill are heralding its potential to enhance America's competitiveness: A large part of the new money would go for “use-inspired” basic research aimed at economic growth.

Angel investors are individuals who offer promising startup companies funding in exchange for a piece of the business, usually in the form of equity or royalties. While figures vary on an annual basis, as recently as 2017 angel investors put approximately $25 billion into 70,000 companies.

Angel investors may or may not be accredited investors, a classification given only to investors with very high incomes or net worths. With the passage of 2012’s Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act, the criteria for startup investors was expanded to include more everyday retail investors, including crowdfunding campaigns.

Amazon, the small online bookstore Bezos started in 1994, was a novel idea when the Internet was beginning to take off. But Bezos was more interested in capitalizing on the growth of Internet sales than he was in selling books. He chose books because of their low price point, large selection, and continued worldwide demand. Now Amazon is a behemoth tech company with 156 million Amazon Prime subscribers worldwide, and often for many the first place to look for purchasing products. Successful, but not innovative.

COLUMBIA, Md. (May 10, 2021)—The Maryland Stem Cell Research Commission has approved funding to its second-round of 2021 recipients for a total of $6,052,901. The Commission has also appointed Amritha Jaishankar, Ph.D., the current MSCRF Director - Programs & Strategic Alliances, to succeed Dan Gincel, Ph.D., as Executive Director of the MSCRF, effective May 14, 2021.

“We thank Dr. Gincel for his leadership and many contributions to the MSCRF over the course of his 14 years as Executive Director, during which he consistently challenged us to grow and evolve to meet the needs of the Maryland stem cell community, and we are delighted that Dr. Jaishankar will lead the MSCRF through its next chapter,” said Dr. Debra Mathews, Chair of the Commission. “Dr. Jaishankar’s leadership, dedication, and tremendous work with the MSCRF and our stem cell community over past few years make her the ideal person to take us forward.”

Breakneck expansion and new spending have put life sciences — and the developers and brokers who build and sell lab space and specialized offices — in an enviable position. But the sector is missing one key ingredient. 

“Today we have immense amounts of capital, lots of focus and a big market," Cushman & Wakefield Director of Business Intelligence Brendan Carroll said. "What’s lagging is the skill."

Image: Creative Commons Roughly 36M SF of lab space is under construction across the country.

Floretta Mayerson is cofounder of the Mexican startup Violetta, a digital safe space where domestic violence victims can get psychological and legal assistance anytime via a chatbot.

After a year of local mentoring, Mayerson applied to the MassChallenge  network of zero-equity startup accelerators – not its Mexican branch but its Israeli one.

Image: Photo by Ricky Rachman, courtesy of MassChallenge Israel

Over the past five years, the Southeastern region, led by Atlanta, has gone from being “one of the best kept secrets” in tech, to a vibrant ecosystem teeming with a herd of the billion dollar tech businesses that are referred to in the investment world as “unicorns” (thanks to their supposed rarity).

In those five years venture capital investments surged to $2.1 billion in the region, with $1 billion invested in the last year alone, according to Lisa Calhoun, a partner with the Atlanta based investment firm, Valor Ventures.

Warren Buffett is one of the most successful investors in history.

He also has a really weird diet.

Buffett's diet of sugary soda, junk food, and limited vegetables has reached legendary status.

The Berkshire Hathaway CEO drinks about five cans of Coca-Cola products a day, constantly munches on See's Candies, and pours so much salt on his food that John Stumpf, the former Wells Fargo CEO, said watching Buffett dole it out was like a "snowstorm."

Image: Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett Rick Wilking/Reuters

As a beginner entrepreneur, you need all the information and resources you have at your disposal. This would ensure that your company grows well and also prepare you for the hurdles you might encounter along the way.

There are plenty of resources that you can find online to support your business. They range from books to websites and much more. Finding them might be easy, but picking the right one might be more of a challenge than expected. Let us look at the ten best ones you should look out for.

Image: http://www.militarypress.com/

As soon as South Korea confirmed its first case of Covid-19 on 20 January 2020, the government set in motion a disease control protocol that was to become the envy of other developed nations. It built high-capacity screening facilities and worked with private companies to ensure a steady supply of test kits. The government isolated infected residents and traced their contacts with an army of trained officers, many of them newly recruited. It built temporary hospitals and hired thousands of health workers to staff them, and centralised procurement of personal protective equipment (PPE).

Lots of folks who should know better scoff at the hockey stick growth projections found in pretty much every start up business plan prepared for pitching venture capital investors. And, indeed, most of those projections never materialize. That mismatch between startup ambition and startup reality is one reason some entrepreneurs are reluctant to pitch hockey stick growth. And that’s a mistake.

Successful business transformations are rare, and the pandemic has made them more necessary and more difficult. The difficulty, especially for “traditional” organizations, isn’t surprising. A substantive and irreversible shift in an organization’s identity, value system, and capabilities requires three difficult acts: Developing a deeper sense of purpose that guides strategic decisions and shapes the workplace culture, repositioning the core business, and creating new sources of growth.

The International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers and Associations said on Wednesday that U.S. President Joe Biden's support for waiving patents of COVID-19 vaccines was "the wrong answer" to a complex problem and called for more technology transfer agreements.

An ambitious push to create a “Global Pandemic Center” in suburban Maryland got a $500,000 boost Tuesday from the Montgomery County Council, which said the project could help drive the county’s post-pandemic economic recovery and foster resilience against the next major health crisis.

Spearheaded by the regional nonprofit Connected DMV, the center would involve scientists and policymakers from across the globe but operate primarily from the D.C. region, with a likely headquarters in Montgomery.

Image: Montgomery County Executive Marc Elrich (D). (Michael S. Williamson/The Washington Post)

CHICAGO, May 4, 2021 — Startups focused on quantum technology are invited to information sessions to learn more about Duality, a 12-month accelerator led by the University of Chicago’s Polsky Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation and the Chicago Quantum Exchange.

Duality is a first-of-its-kind incubator exclusively for startups focused on building quantum technology products, applications, and enabling technologies. Applications for Cohort 1 are due May 21.

For  he past few decades, only astronauts could travel to space. And yes, it was a privilege when my daughter and I met astronaut Sally Ride. Now, thanks to visionaries like Elon Musk and emerging technologies, we're talking about multi-planetary existence — an evolution indeed. Morgan Stanley estimates that the global space industry could grow to more than $1 trillion in revenue by 2040. Meanwhile, space tourism will be a $3 billion market by 2030, according to UBS (via CNBC).