The number of cases of SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus infection, and COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus, continue to increase in the United States—both in number and in location (real-time map). At the same time, the number and severity of symptoms post-infection can vary by age and other risk factors (CDC Report). High level officials and politicians have been reported to be infected by, or in contact with, the virus. And there is no U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved or licensed cure for COVID-19 (other than time, supportive measures as necessary, and a healthy immune system). "Although there are investigational COVID-19 vaccines and treatments under development, these investigational products are in the early stages of product development and have not yet been fully tested for safety or effectiveness."

The narrative of the college dropout who became an insanely successful startup founder is one that’s entrepreneurial lore. Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes all dropped out of undergrad, for example, and three of the four wound up building wildly successful companies. (Not too shabby.) But the reality is that for every founder who started a business in their college dorm room, there are more who finished up their degree and likely worked at low-level jobs for years before finding entrepreneurial success. 

A common pain of startups after an exhilarating first surge of early adopters is a long and frustrating plateau of slow growth, where it seems like nothing you do will get your business to profitability. Too many entrepreneurs don’t know what to do at this point, largely accounting for that disappointing 50 percent of startups that fail in the first five years, according to Gallup.

Image: https://blog.startupprofessionals.com

It’s the end of the workday, and your to-do list has barely been touched. You feel guilty for not getting more done. But this emotion is neither useful, nor healthy. So, what can you do about it? How should you handle feelings that you’re letting down your coworkers, boss, customers — and even yourself? How can you learn to accept that you are doing the best you can? And, what are some strategies for getting smarter about how you tackle your interminable to-do list?

The federal government’s $950-million supercluster initiative — a key plank of Canada’s Innovation and Skills Plan — has been slow to get off the ground. However, a new suite of supercluster projects was announced in January. These investments range from support for Air Canada to integrate artificial intelligence technologies into its operations, to a program aimed at diversifying talent in quantum computing. Collectively, they promise to strengthen Canada’s economy and foster globally competitive companies.

Canadian venture capital continued to soar in 2019 as homegrown startups and scale-ups saw more than triple the investment they received just six years earlier, nearing heights not seen since before the dot-com crash.

Image: Kim Furlong, the CVCA’s chief executive officer, said interest from U.S. capital and the sector-stimulating federal Venture Capital Catalyst Initiative helped boost funding in 2019 after a plateau in the previous year. CANADIAN VENTURE CAPITAL AND PRIVATE EQUITY ASSOCIATION

Rebecca Henderson, professor at Harvard Business School, says that both capitalism and democracy are failing us. She argues that it will take public and private leaders working together to simultaneously fix these two systems because free markets don’t function well without free politics, and healthy government needs corporate support to survive. She is calling on the business community to take the first step. Henderson is the author of the upcoming book Reimagining Capitalism in a World on Fire, and the March Big Idea article, “The Business Case for Saving Democracy.”

MENLO PARK, Calif. and NEW YORK, March 11, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- New Enterprise Associates, Inc. (NEA) today announced that it has closed on $3.6 billion for its latest fund, bringing the firm's committed capital to nearly $24 billion over its 42-year history. In conjunction with the new fund, Liza Landsman has been named General Partner. Landsman, who joined the firm's New York office as a Venture Partner in 2018 after serving as president of NEA portfolio company Jet.com, focuses on software and services investments across the consumer landscape.

Some jobs intrinsically have more health risks than others.

And the novel coronavirus outbreak that has swept around the world, infecting over 116,000 people and killing over 4,000, shows how those risks can be dangerous in the middle of a new epidemic. While some jobs are particularly prone to being hit in an epidemic, dozens of other occupations face general health risks.

On Tuesday, The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation launched a $125 million research fund to support drugmakers and academics in the hunt for effective coronavirus treatments. The Gates Foundation and the Burroughs Wellcome Fund contributed $50 million each, and Mastercard (NYSE:MA) kicked in $25 million to launch the COVID-19 Therapeutics Accelerator. 

Two of the most widely felt symptoms of the coronavirus are uncertainty and confusion. Part of this is about jargon. A doctor can make bad news even more alarming by using scientific terms that the patient doesn’t understand. And it doesn’t help the masses trying to get a grasp on just what — and how bad — the situation with this virus is when discussions about it inevitably drift into technical territory.

In the wake of COVID-19, markets are shifting and investors and businesses are preparing for continued disruption. Commercial Banking Head Economist Jim Glassman answered critical questions about the recent economic events that have left the world wondering where the global economy is headed.  

Q: What does market volatility caused by COVID-19 mean for the global economy right now?

There were around 600,000 unfilled tech jobs in the UK in 2019, a figure which is expected to grow to one million in 2020, according to the Inclusive Tech Alliance (ITA), an organisation seeking to increase diversity and inclusion in the tech sector. In a 2018 report, the ITA recommended filling those extra vacancies by recruiting more women into the tech industry.

It’s 2020, and we don’t have flying cars (yet), but think about the cool things that we do have: Augmented reality that brings joy into the daily lives of more than 163 million people. Drones that deliver vital medicine. An effective treatment for postpartum depression. Creative ways to curb society’s addiction to new clothing and single-use plastic. Platforms that allow fiction writers and video producers to get paid. And all the hard seltzer we can drink. Read on to see how these and dozens more inspiring accomplishments are driving this year’s list of the World’s Most Innovative Companies. Plus, the 44 Top 10 most innovative firms, by sector and region. We hope you’re as inspired learning from these businesses as we were in selecting them.

Debt can often be a thorn in your side on the path to building wealth, but it's not all bad.

Still, if you're a homeowner with a mortgage, you've likely weighed the decision to pay it off early, if you can afford to. It's a worthy goal to be free and clear of all debt, but is it the right choice if you're trying to optimize your every dollar?

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is teaming up with Wellcome and Mastercard to form the COVID-19 Therapeutics Accelerator, a $125 million effort to help find potential treatments for the coronavirus epidemic and future threats.

The accelerator will bring together the World Health Organization, pharmaceutical companies, biotech firms, government, and other philanthropic groups to develop therapies for COVID-19.

Image: Mark Suzman. (Gates Foundation Photo)

Every industry has a set of unwritten branding rules, or tendencies, that become codified over time. Sometimes they can become clichés. Most industries will have only a few types of names. This happens naturally: One company finds success, and the next company mimics them because it worked for the first. The next thing you know, it’s a rule, and no one remembers why it started. This applies to everything from how businesses are run to color choice and typography to their names. But let’s look at naming for now.

Online cycling-class provider Peloton isn’t a tech company. Nor are ride-sharing services Uber and Lyft, work-space provider WeWork, online fashion stylist Stitch Fix, meal delivery service Blue Apron, or content creator and curator Netflix, to name just a few that have been given that moniker.

The overuse of tech as the modifier du jour recalls the Internet-bubble age. In the late 1990s, companies that weren’t centered on clicks or whose online-oriented business was founded in vain added .com to their names to get Wall Street cred and attract venture capital. Now, it seems, tech is — or wants to be — a similarly magic word.

Who were the people behind Facebook when it was just a startup? And where are they now?

Only two of Facebook's first 20 employees still work at the company — and you can probably guess one of them.

Most left during the social network's early days to work at other tech companies or start their own. Several have become successful investors at large VC firms; many are now absurdly rich following Facebook's IPO in 2012.

Image: Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg in 2007. Paul Sakuma/AP

The mainstream language of leadership is geared toward deciding and affirming rather than questioning. Yet my recent research finds that – contrary to popular belief – leaders who routinely ask questions become more credible in their roles.

Most leaders believe the opposite. They think their questions betray a lack of knowledge that could raise doubts about their competence. While not always untrue, that is only part of a more complex picture, as my co-author Irina Cojuhrenco of the University of Surrey and I explain in a forthcoming paper in Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes.