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The secrets of women running billion-dollar companies

Billion-dollar startups are so rare they're called unicorns. Those led by a women? Even rarer. Here, three share what they've learned. Read more in FastCo.

Thanks, +Michele Choi 

Warren Buffett adds to his lead in $1 million hedge-fund bet

Seven years into a 10-year performance wager, the Berkshire Hathaway CEO is winning easily. Read more in Fortune.

Op-Ed // As I lay dying

Breast cancer is not one disease; there is no one 'cure.' Read Laurie Becklund's piece in the NYT.

Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: UK Labour Party (HBO)

Thanks, +Leslie Labruto 

How an Undocumented Immigrant From Mexico Became a Star at Goldman Sachs

"Julissa Arce went from selling funnel cakes in Texas to derivatives at Wall Street’s most profitable securities firm." Read more in Bloomberg.

The younger the better: millennials take over business

"From Facebook to Spotify, some of today’s biggest companies were launched by millennials. Laura French looks at whether the under-30s are taking over the entrepreneurial world"

Read more in World Finance.

The Neurochemistry of Positive Conversations

Why do negative comments and conversations stick with us so much longer than positive ones?

Read more in HBR. Thanks, 10Thoughts

Spies Can Track You Just by Watching Your Phone’s Power Use

Whoa. Read more in WIRED.

Thanks, 10Thoughts

The Epidemic of Facelessness

Glad to see online hate speech result in real-life consequences.

What should you do with trolls on the internet? Read more in the NYT.

Straight Talk for White Men

Read Nicholas Kristof's perspective on unconscious bias in the NYT.

This 23-Year-Old Is Taking on Nike and Apple With a Crowdfunded Sleep Tracker

Read more in WIRED.

Marijuana may be even safer than previously thought, researchers say

A new study compared all kinds of substances, and found that pot is more than 100 times safer than alcohol. Author's recommendation? "We should stop fighting marijuana legalization and focus on alcohol and tobacco instead."

Read more in the Washington Post.

Tracy Young Speaks at Female Founders Conference 2015

Thanks, +Julia Chou 

How Etsy Alienated Its Crafters and Lost Its Soul

Read more in WIRED.

Feminist writers are so besieged by online abuse that some have begun to retire

More from the Broad Street:

Feminist blogger Lindy West recently said on This American Life that "being insulted and threatened online is part of my job." She is hardly alone. Feminist writers are learning that taking an online beating is now an everyday occurrence, leading some to early retirement.

Read more in the Washington Post.

Don't trust the privacy settings

From The Broad Street: "Accept the basic truth that everything you post online can and will be seen by your boss. Now use that to your advantage. Pam Wickham, vice president of corporate affairs and communications at Raytheon, explains how."

Read more in Fortune.

Women are leaving the tech industry in droves

Read more in LA Times.

Movie Date Night Can Double as Therapy

An excerpt:

One of the great divides in male-female relationships is the “chick flick” — movies like “Terms of Endearment” and “The Notebook” that often leave women in tears and men bored. But now, a fascinating new study shows that sappy relationship movies made in Hollywood can actually help strengthen relationships in the real world.

Read more in the NYT.

No Need to Be Afraid. It's Only a Performance Review.

This excerpt:

...we conflate what should really be three separate things: appreciation (I can see you -- what you do matters), coaching (helping you get better through advice and mentoring) and evaluation (how you are rated or ranked against a set of standards).

Read more in the NYT. Thanks, +Jordan Dods 

The Unsinkable R.B.G.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg has no interest in retiring. Read more in the NYT.

Forget Myers-Briggs: To Build a Great Team, Focus on 'Factor C'

Read Cass Sunstein's article in LinkedIn.

Inside Ashton Kutcher's celebrity-powered viral media empire, which no one knows exists

Read more in Business Insider.

Congrats, +Evan Beard and +Kendall Dabaghi! Big year.

Gen Y Income Inequality: What It Takes to Be in the Millennial 1%

For perspective:

When you hear the phrase “one-percenter,” what do you imagine? 

If you’re like most people, a suited, silver-haired Wall Streeter probably comes to mind. But research newly compiled by media company Fusion reminds us that income inequality certainly isn’t unique to the Boomer generation. 

In fact, it may actually be worse among Millennials. 

Comparing U.S. Census income data among 18- to 34-year-olds in 2014, Fusion found that it takes earnings of about $129,000 per year to make into the Millennial 1% set, in which there are 720,000 young adults.

Read more in LearnVest.

Thanks, +Andrea Sparrey 

The Guide to Strong Boundaries

So true:

Healthy Personal Boundaries = Taking responsibility for your own actions and emotions, while NOT taking responsibility for the actions or emotions of others

Lots of deeply important lessons in here. Read Mark Manson's post.

Thanks, +Mark Wilson 

Pronouns Matter when Psyching Yourself Up

An excerpt:

Some people seem to have an amazing ability to stay rational no matter what. They efficiently make good, clear decisions while the rest of us waste energy doing things like panicking about upcoming tasks, ruminating pointlessly, or refusing to move on from our failures. Those cool-headed rationalists also seem adept at getting ahead, while we’re mired in our all-too-human, biased habits of thinking. Could we ever become like them? The gulf between the two types of people seems vast and unbridgeable. 

But it’s not. It can be crossed, via a simple linguistic shift.

Find out the answer in HBR.

Thanks, +Andrea Sparrey 

The Courage to Live Consciously

An excerpt:

In our day-to-day lives, the virtue of courage doesn't receive much attention. Courage is a quality reserved for soldiers, firefighters, and activists. Security is what matters most today. Perhaps you were taught to avoid being too bold or too brave. It's too dangerous. Don't take unnecessary risks. Don't draw attention to yourself in public. Follow family traditions. Don't talk to strangers. Keep an eye out for suspicious people. Stay safe. 

But a side effect of overemphasizing the importance of personal security in your life is that it can cause you to live reactively. Instead of setting your own goals, making plans to achieve them, and going after them with gusto, you play it safe. Keep working at the stable job, even though it doesn't fulfill you. Remain in the unsatisfying relationship, even though you feel dead inside compared to the passion you once had. 

Check out Steve Pavlina's post.

Thanks, +Mark Wilson 

Warby Parker Sees the Future of Retail

Read the FastCompany article on Warby Parker -- the most innovative company of 2015. And a nice VisionSpring shout-out, too.

Great find, David

Measuring This Brain Region Could Predict Depression And Anxiety Years Before It Hits

Read more in HuffPo. Nice Duke call out, too!

10 Years of YouTube: Evolution of Viral Video

I've seen nearly all of them. Makes me wonder how I've spent the past 10 years.

Welcome To The Unicorn Club: Learning From Billion-Dollar Startups

Read Aileen Lee's post in TechCrunch.

Caribbean's Different Gender Gap: Women Rise, Men Stagnate

The Caribbean is home to the world's highest proportion of female bosses, according to a report out by the United Nations. "Women are the ones who are the main breadwinners. We push harder to earn," said a female smoke shop owner in Jamaica, where nearly 60% of managers are women.

Read more in the NYT.

Is the Professor Bossy or Brilliant? Much Depends on Gender

Read more in the NYT.

How to Rent a Dog for a Day

This changes everything. Read more in the Bold Italic.

Thanks, +Samantha Pearlman 

Dear Sugar, Episode 2: The Two Stories We Tell

TED Talk // Daniel Kahneman: The riddle of experience vs. memory

"Using examples from vacations to colonoscopies, Nobel laureate and founder of behavioral economics Daniel Kahneman reveals how our 'experiencing selves' and our 'remembering selves' perceive happiness differently. This new insight has profound implications for economics, public policy — and our own self-awareness."

Coding Bootcamp versus Online Learning

For anyone interested in learning how to code, read more about options in Athentica.

Thanks, +Matt Skaruppa 

Monopoly’s Inventor: The Progressive Who Didn’t Pass ‘Go’

Read more in the NYT.

Thanks, Elizabeth

What Can a Pregnant Photojournalist Cover? Everything

Read Lynsey Addario's story in the NYT.

Thanks, +Julia Chou 

The prisoners trying to code their way to a better life

"San Quentin state prison in California has begun a ground-breaking programme to teach prisoners how to code. Eighteen inmates have been selected to take part in a six month course which teaches them essential web coding languages and aims to make them more employable when they leave prison." Read more in BBC.

Thanks, +Howie Liu 

How One Stupid Tweet Blew Up Justine Sacco’s Life

Read more in the NYT.

Teacher Bias: Teachers Give Girls Better Grades on Math Tests When They Don’t Know They Are Girls

Read more in Slate.

Watch American Kids’ Hilarious Reactions to Breakfast Foods From Around the World

Thanks, +Katherine Stiner 

Sergei Polunin, "Take Me to Church" by Hozier, Directed by David LaChapelle

Incredible performance -- read more about it in HuffPo.

Thanks, +Gabby McGlynn 

For Warby Parker, Free Glasses Equals Clear Company Vision

Read more in Entrepreneur.

Nice VisionSpring call out for Jordan & Neil!

TED Talk // Rita Pierson: Every kid needs a champion

Rita Pierson, a teacher for 40 years, once heard a colleague say, "They don't pay me to like the kids." Her response: "Kids don't learn from people they don’t like." A rousing call to educators to believe in their students and actually connect with them on a real, human, personal level. She's a badass.

Thanks, +Sonya Mehta 

TEDxGoldenGateED // Jeff Duncan-Andrade - Growing Roses in Concrete

I got chills: "The concrete is real."

Thanks, +Sonya Mehta 

Seven habits of optimistic people

"Optimists aren’t just people who see the glass half full. They also make more money than pessimists and enjoy health benefits such as fewer colds, a reduced risk of cardiovascular disease, and a longer life." Read more in FastCompany.

Thanks, +Genevieve Dukes 

A Navy SEAL Explains 8 Secrets To Grit And Resilience

An excerpt:

• Purpose and meaning. It’s easier to be persistent when what we’re doing is tied to something personally meaningful.
• Make it a game. It’s the best way to stay in a competitive mindset without stressing yourself out.
• Be confident — but realistic. See the challenges honestly but believe in your own ability to take them on.
• Prepare, prepare, prepare. Grit comes a lot easier when you’ve done the work to make sure you’re ready.
• Focus on improvement. Every SEAL mission ends with a debrief focusing on what went wrong so they can improve.
• Give help and get help. Support from others helps keep you going, and giving others support does the same.
• Celebrate small wins. You can’t wait to catch the big fish. Take joy where you can find it when good times are scarce.
• Find a way to laugh. Rangers, SEALs, and scientists agree: a chuckle can help you cope with stress and keep you going.

Read more in Bakadesuyo.

Challenges: Could You Go 40 Days Without Being Mean?

Fascinating and one of my favorite things I've read all month:

...I considered the ghastly, likely possibility that my whole personality was merely a result of wanting attention. And then I talked to Penny Pexman, a sort of sarcasm scholar at the University of Calgary, whose analysis was even more grim. “Complaining, being skeptical, and being critical are all ways of trying to show people you’re smarter than they are,” she said...

Read more in NY Mag.

Nice find, via 10Thoughts

13 Habits of Exceptionally Likeable People

Read more in Forbes.

Thanks, 10Thoughts

Meditation associated with slower age-related loss of gray matter in the brain

"Results of a new study by UCLA researchers suggest that meditation may help preserve the brain’s gray matter, the tissue that contains neurons."

Read more in KurzweilAI.

A World Overflowing With Debt

Bloomberg: Does anybody still remember 2007?

 Read more about the McKinsey Global Institute report in Bloomberg and in the WSJ.

Thanks, Jon

The 7 Best Waterfall Hikes near San Francisco

Check them out in the Bold Italic.

Thanks, +Gloria Ahn 

Why I Am Not a Maker

"When tech culture only celebrates creation, it risks ignoring those who teach, criticize, and take care of others." Read more in the Atlantic.

Thanks, Ginny

Inside the Chinese Bitcoin Mine That's Making $1.5M a Month

Read more in Vice.

This Is The Best Way Anyone Has Ever Handled Harassment On Their Commute

"No, we don’t want no scrubs." If you're a TLC fan you'll appreciate this in Buzzfeed.

Discovering What's Possible: Creativity, Design, Leadership

Discovering What's Possible: Creativity, Design, Leadership

An Online Skillshare Class by John Maeda

Check out John Meada's SkillShare course.

Thanks, +Cassandra Coravos 

10,000 Hours with Reid Hoffman: What I Learned

An excerpt:

Every decision has tradeoffs: when you choose to do one thing it means you choose not do some other thing. When you choose to optimize a choice on one factor, it means necessarily suboptimizing on another factors. Reid faced tradeoffs in his life that were heavier than the ones you or I face. Imagine you could meet anyone, from the President of the United States on down. Do almost anything you can think of – from saving the local opera company from bankruptcy to traveling to the farthest outposts on earth in total luxury. A small number of humans have virtually no constraints on their decision-making, and Reid is one of them. When Reid chose to fly to Las Vegas and speak at this event, the list of things he chose not to do with that time was very, very long. 

Often, Reid wrestled with these tradeoffs. Author E.B. White once captured the essence of why. “I wake up in the morning unsure of whether I want to savor the world or save the world,” White said, “This makes it hard to plan the day.”

Read Ben Cashocha's blog.

Thanks, +Gloria Ahn 

Madam C.E.O., Get Me a Coffee

Sheryl Sandberg and Adam Grant on women doing ‘Office Housework.' Read more in the NYT.

Thanks, Tom

Science Has Good News for Women Who Love Twitter

Women who use Twitter to express public instances of sexism have higher levels of well-being than do peers who experience their frustrations privately, according to a new study in Mic.

Lennon & Maisy // "Boom Clap" // Charli XCX

For all the Nashville groupies out there.

I Prevail - Blank Space (Taylor Swift) - Punk Goes Pop Style Cover

Haha, this is epic. For all of you who listened (listen?) to angsty teen rock.

Great find, +Fred Ehrsam 

The 'Invisible' Workers Keeping Our World Running

An excerpt:

Everybody’s a personal “brand-builder” these days. Working social media. Tending the Facebook page. Hitting Twitter. Well, not everybody. We can’t all be celebrities – and some don’t want to be self-promoters. My guest this hour David Zweig is writing about what he calls the “invisibles.” If that sounds like superheroes, maybe they are. But they’re not looking for public recognition. They’re the engineers and anesthesiologists, craftsmen and women, techs and tuners who make everything work. For the love of the work, not fame.

Listen to the podcast. Thanks, +Brandon Kearse 

Watch A Piece Of Chicago's Architectural History Come Tumbling Down

"The debate over Historic Prentice Women's Hospital is long over and Northwestern University is well into replacing Bertrand Goldberg's brutalist architecture and groundbreaking cantilever design with a modern research facility after architecture buffs and preservationists put up a fight to have the university reconsider demolishing the building."

Read more in the Chicagoist. Thanks, +Cassie Coravos 

Maternity leave policies in America hurt working moms

In 2013, for example, 64% of mother with children under six worked. Still, 88% of American women do not get paid for a single day or a single hour after they give birth. Read more in the New Republic.

What’s in Those Supplements?

A worrisome excerpt:

The New York State attorney general’s office accused four national retailers on Monday of selling dietary supplements that were fraudulent and in many cases contaminated with unlisted ingredients. 

The authorities said they had run tests on popular store brands of herbal supplements at the retailers — Walmart, Walgreens, Target and GNC — which showed that roughly four out of five of the products contained none of the herbs listed on their labels. In many cases, the authorities said, the supplements contained little more than cheap fillers like rice and house plants, or substances that could be hazardous to people with food allergies.

Read more in the NYT.

a16z's Balaji Srinivasan gives a talk on "Voice vs. Exit"

"You can try to reform (voice), or you can leave (exit)." Thanks, +Fred Ehrsam

Most Startup Founders Pay Themselves This Totally Reasonable Salary

The question of how much startup founders should pay themselves has long been up for debate. Here's what the average founder earns. Read more in Inc.

The AI Revolution: Our Immortality or Extinction

Part 2 -- lots of things we probably should be talking about more often in here. Read more in Wait But Why.

"Bored and Brilliant" will inspire you to rethink your relationship with your phone

Join New Tech City's Bored and Brilliant project, a week of challenges to help you detach from your phone and spend more time thinking creatively.

Your Smartphone May Be Robbing You of Your Best Ideas

Read more in Big Think.

Thanks, +Amira Choueiki Boland 

Heart and sole: Detroiter walks 21 miles in work commute

Incredible determination. Read more in Detroit Free Press.

Friendship and Race and Knowing Your Place

Read Nicole Soojung Callahan's perspective on being Asian in the Toast.

Thanks, +Elaine Choi 

The Inferiority Complex

Read about the cartoon in the Rumpus.

Thanks, +Elaine Choi 

Ray Kurzweil’s Mind-Boggling Predictions for the Next 25 Years

Some of these predictions are mind-boggling.... and he has quite the history of getting predictions right. Read more in Singularity Hub.

Thanks, +Gareth Hornberger