A Mourning Industry Grapples With the Future of Office Security | Business Insider

August 1, 2025July 31, 2025 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

The deadly shooting in a Midtown skyscraper on Monday evening dealt an especially painful blow to New York City’s commercial real estate community.

Two of the four victims worked in real estate: Wesley Lepatner, the 43-year-old CEO of a large Blackstone real estate fund, and Julia Hyman, a young associate at Rudin Management, a commercial landlord that owns the tower where the shooting took place.

The setting — a notable skyscraper along Park Avenue — also hit close to home. As a premier office building in one of the top office districts in the nation, the site of the violence has raised unsettling questions among real estate professionals about how to better protect tenants. While no one can fully defend against someone bent on violence (Monday’s gunman appeared prepared to die), conversations are already underway in an industry now mourning two of its own.

Apple Salaries Revealed: How Much AI Staffers, Engineers Make in 2025 | Business Insider

August 1, 2025July 31, 2025 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Four of Apple’s top AI researchers have defected to Meta in the past month, Bloomberg reported, and Apple has upped pay for researchers within its Apple Foundation Models (AFM) group, Bloomberg reported — another symptom of the ongoing talent wars.

Apple unveiled its Apple Intelligence AI platform last year. At this year’s Worldwide Developers Conference, Craig Federighi, senior vice president of software engineering, said Apple’s work on Siri needed “more time.”

Proton releases a new app for two-factor authentication | TechCrunch

July 31, 2025 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Privacy-focused productivity tool company Proton released a new authenticator app today, allowing users to log in to services using dynamically generated two-factor authentication codes.

The free app is available on all platforms starting today, including iOS, Android, Windows, macOS, and Linux. The app allows users to sync codes and accounts across devices. The company said that just like its other products, Proton Authenticator is open source and uses end-to-end encryption to protect user data.

Users can easily import login codes from other authentication apps, the company said. Plus, the app automatically backs up codes and also works without any internet connection.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang Says AI Will Create Millionaires | Entrepreneur

July 30, 2025July 29, 2025 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

In a new interview, Nvidia co-founder and CEO Jensen Huang says that AI will mint more millionaires in the next five years than the Internet did in two decades.

On a recent episode of “The All-In Podcast,” Huang said that AI technology enables people to create new things, filling in skill gaps and allowing for more chances to generate revenue.

For example, Huang noted that AI is “the greatest technology equalizer of all time” because it can turn anyone into a programmer, removing the barrier of learning a coding language like Python or C++ to be able to build an app or create a website for a business.

Self-Funded Founder’s 3 Secrets for $25M Revenue and 2 Brands | Entrepreneur

July 30, 2025July 29, 2025 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Growing up in Toronto, Canada, Tanya Taylor, now founder of her namesake womenswear brand and a second eveningwear brand, Delphine, didn’t really know she could build a career in fashion, she says. However, as someone from a “very entrepreneurial” family, she’d always dreamed of running her own business.

“ I took for granted that our dinner table conversations were always about small businesses, the people you work with, the values you have in your work and how rewarding it is when you can build a company,” Taylor says. That foundation led her to study finance at McGill University, but Taylor couldn’t shake the “creative itch” she felt to join the fashion world. So Taylor moved to New York City, where she didn’t know anyone at the time, and applied to the Parsons AAS Fashion Design program — after which her “whole world changed.”

Taylor went on to work for Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen on their contemporary lifestyle brand, Elizabeth and James, for several years.

“ What I found so inspiring, and what I still like to think about today, is how personal they were with their design process,” Taylor recalls, “and how working for a female founder that was creating product for a customer that they could really relate to, whether through age or just lifestyle, felt fun. We weren’t guessing who this person was. It wasn’t fantasy; it was grounded in reality.”

Deciding in the Dark: How Great Leaders Make Smart Choices in Uncertain Times | Getentrepreneurial.com

July 29, 2025 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Uncertainty is not a passing storm—it’s the new climate. To thrive, leaders must abandon the illusion of perfect information and instead adopt a mindset of adaptability, a skillset of structured judgment, and toolsets that support iterative decision-making.

Core Insights & Impact

1. Embrace Probabilistic Thinking

Mindset: Replace “What will happen?” with “What could happen, and how likely is each scenario?”

Skillset: Estimate outcomes based on likelihoods, not certainties—consider a range of scenarios and update beliefs as new data emerges.

Toolset: Use frameworks like decision trees or Bayesian updating.

Impact: Reduces overconfidence and helps teams make informed bets rather than risky leaps.

Sleep with the Fear: How Perplexity’s CEO Turns Anxiety into Advantage | Getentrepreneurial.com

July 29, 2025 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Aravind Srinivas, co-founder and CEO of Perplexity (now valued at $14 billion), says his secret to success is not launching — but living — with the constant fear that your idea will be copied by Big Tech. This fear becomes fuel for relentless innovation, urgency, and building unique defensibility.

Core Insights & Impact

1. Normalize the Fear of Being Copied

Mindset: Accept that if your product becomes a hit, competitors—especially large, resource-rich incumbents—will copy it.

Impact: Instead of paralysis, this mindset shifts fear into a strategic advantage, prompting continuous iteration and improvement.

China Debuts World’s First 500 MW Impulse Turbine, Redefining Hydropower Scale | Cool Business Ideas

July 28, 2025July 27, 2025 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Harbin Electric has unveiled the world’s first 500?MW impulse turbine, a massive hydroelectric marvel with a 6.2?m diameter and 80-ton weight, engineered for the Datang?Zala Hydropower Station in Tibet. It’s the biggest and most powerful impulse turbine ever built—but it won’t be generating electricity until its 2028 debut.

Impact:

A New Record in Hydropower Engineering Each turbine—including its 21 precision water buckets—is forged from martensitic steel and weighs approximately 80 tons, claiming the title of the largest and highest-capacity impulse runner globally. Unmatched Efficiency Gains Designed for the high-head Datang Zala site (2,201?ft drop), advancements in bucket design boost efficiency from 91% to 92.6%, resulting in an extra ~190?MWh of electricity daily. Clean Energy with Significant Emission Reductions Once operational, the plant’s 1,000?MW capacity is expected to generate ~4 billion kWh annually—the equivalent of burning 1.3 million tons of coal and avoiding approximately 3.4 million tons of CO? per year. Fully Homegrown Innovation From design and forging to welding, China Datang and Harbin Electric executed all processes domestically. Cutting-edge welding tech—3D metrology, simulation, fatigue-resistant joints—was critical for managing the turbine’s sheer size and stress thresholds. Strategic Clean-Energy Leap The turbine marks China’s leadership in hydropower innovation and aligns with its goal of carbon neutrality by 2060. The Datang Zala project is also a flagship for high-head impulse hydropower in complex terrain.

Mercedes Turns Cars into Cars–offices: CLA Models Now Support Teams, Copilot & Intune | Cool Business Ideas

July 28, 2025July 27, 2025 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Mercedes-Benz is redefining the commuter experience: the latest CLA allows drivers to participate in Microsoft Teams video calls using the in-car camera—legally and safely while moving—and includes integrated Microsoft 365 Copilot and Intune management, positioning the vehicle as an official “third workspace.”

Impact:

Mercedes and Microsoft extend the boundaries of vehicle functionality, transforming cars into productivity hubs. Here’s how:

On-the-Go Meetings Drivers can now join Teams video calls via the in-car camera during transit, with the screen automatically blacking out shared content for safety compliance. AI-Powered Ride Assistance Integration of Microsoft 365 Copilot lets drivers handle emails and prep for meetings using voice commands—without needing to touch a device. Corporate-Grade Security With Microsoft Intune built into Mercedes’ MB.OS platform, cars can be managed like corporate devices, supporting enrollment, policies, and remote wiping.