My end of week morning train WFH reads:
• MacKenzie Scott’s Money Bombs Are Single Handedly Reshaping America With almost $8.6 billion in gifts announced in just 12 months, Scott has vaulted to the tippy top of philanthropic giving, outspending the behemoth Gates and Ford Foundations’ annual grants — combined. But, for someone who is single handedly reshaping nonprofits, Scott, who declined to comment for this story, has only given the public glimpses into the thinking driving her decisions. (Bloomberg)
• Who Wants To Return To The Office? the question isn’t whether working from home will stick — it’s whether executives will take into account the findings of this widespread work-from-home experiment to reevaluate who the system is working for. (FiveThirtyEight)
• The Ultimate Diversifier: What Real Assets Are Gaining in Allocator Portfolios Infrastructure such as bridges and tunnels, plus farmland and other natural resources, is winning new favor. (Chief Investment Officer)
• Let’s Make A Deal: Who’s For Sale In Hollywood And For How Much? Studios behind hits like Godzilla Vs. Kong, La La Land and 8 Mile are ready to be gobbled up — and their price-tags are surprising. (Forbes)
• U.S. Inflation Is Normalizing: The temporary inflation spike associated with reopening is already beginning to fade as prices that were depressed during the pandemic continue to normalize and as consumer demand for motor vehicles continues to moderate.. (The Overshoot)
• This Is a Terrible Time for Savers In an upside-down world of financial markets, expected returns after inflation are at record lows. (New York Times)
• Smart Cities, Bad Metaphors, and a Better Urban Future Shannon Mattern’s new book, A City Is Not a Computer, digs into the data, dashboards, and language that keep people from building better, safer communities. (Wired)
• Reiki Can’t Possibly Work. So Why Does It? The energy therapy is now available in many hospitals. What its ascendance says about shifts in how American patients and doctors think about health care. We were putting adaptogens in our coffee, collagen in our smoothies, jade eggs in our vaginas. We were microdosing, supplementing, biohacking, juicing, cleansing, and generally trying to make ourselves immaculate from the inside out. (The Atlantic)
• America has a long history of vaccination mandates. Why should the worst plague in a century be any different? Ever since George Washington forced his troops to be inoculated against smallpox in 1777, Americans have routinely complied with vaccination mandates. Such mandates are, in fact, as American as apple pie. As Scientific American noted: “Every state and Washington, D.C., requires routine vaccinations, such as for measles, mumps and rubella, as a condition of school attendance.” (Washington Post) see also What Is Biden Waiting For? The Delta variant is making clear what the Administration should have done back in January: mandate vaccines, mandate passports and crack down on the denialists. Now time is running short. (Medium)
• This Boy Band Is the Joy That Hong Kong Needs Right Now The popularity of the group, called Mirror, has offered the city a rare burst of unity and pleasure after years of political upheaval. (New York Times)
Be sure to check out our Masters in Business interview this weekend with Greg Becker, CEO of Silicon Valley Bank. The bank has helped fund more than 30,000 start-ups, 50% of venture-backed tech and life science companies in the US, and 69% of U.S. VC-backed tech + life science companies with an IPO banked with SVB.
There’s a big shift happening in the housing market
Source: Fortune
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