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JPMorgan Chase’s Crazy Fine Tally
Spencer Platt/Getty
JPMorgan Chase is one of America’s largest and most highly regarded banks. But in the past few years, it has paid out several billion dollars to settle lawsuits from consumers and regulators.
The nice thing about being in the financial services world is that you never really have to say you’re sorry. Screw over customers, botch foreclosures, run afoul of important regulations, and violate some important rules—and the worst you’ll have to do is pay some fines or settlements. It’s a cost of doing business, even for America’s most highly regarded banks.Take JPMorgan Chase. The New York–based firm, under the leadership of hard-charging CEO Jamie Dimon, emerged from the financial crisis in much better shape than many of its rivals.
Marissa Mayer Ignores the Haters
Brad Barket/Getty
The Yahoo chief’s perceived missteps may rivet the media, but she’s not concerned with negativity, she told Wired’s Business Conference. And the working from home flap? She’s over it, reports Nina Strochlic.
Marissa Mayer isn’t listening to her critics. In February, the young CEO drew fire and ignited a debate after barring Yahoo employees from working outside the office. “I really didn’t mean for it to become an industry narrative about whether people could successfully work from home,” she said with a hint of bemused frustration at Wired’s Business Conference on Tuesday. “It’s gotten taken to hyperbole.”The 37-year-old Mayer has attracted all kinds of criticism and speculation since her Yahoo appointment last summer made her the youngest head of a Fortune 500 company.
Abramson Leans In
Brad Barket/Getty
New York Times Executive Editor Jill Abramson discusses multimedia, covering the Boston Marathon attacks, and Buzzfeed.
If you've seen the graceful, groundbreaking multimedia package of “Snow Fall,” John Branch’s Pulitzer-prize-winning investigation of a deadly avalanche, you'll know why the The New York Times's newsroom has turned the story package into a verb. “Everyone wants to Snow Fall now,” said Executive Editor Jill Abramson (who calls herself "a total words person"), at Wired's Business Conference Tuesday afternoon.Sitting down with Wired's Editor in Chief Scott Dadich, the Times's first female top editor started by delving into the company's April 15 Pulitzer celebration gone sour, as news of the Boston Marathon bombings spread through the wires.
Warby Parker’s Vision
The online glasses retailer has thrived with a unique business model: low prices, hip vintage frames, and a promise to donate glasses to people in the developing world.
Warby Parker’s first office was inside cofounder Neil Blumenthal's apartment, where the fledgling company's glasses samples were displayed across his dining-room table. Soon after, the startup took the plunge for a real office, in New York’s Union Square, and was promptly kicked out when an endless flow of customers broke the building’s one elevator.Three years since four Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania students conceived of the idea, Warby Parker has defied expectations.
Adobe Ditches Boxes
To sell software online
Another icon goes all-digital. Adobe Systems will no longer offer new versions of its creative software in stores but, rather, will focus on selling its products online. While a risk for a company whose revenue comes in large part from its packaged software, Adobe is making the bet that savings on labor costs and a smoother delivery of products will keep creative professionals happy with its products.
Pfizer Puts Viagra Online
To combat counterfeiters.
Now the solution is just a click away. Viagra, one of the most counterfeited drugs in the world, will now be sold online by Pfizer. As of Monday, the drug, worth more than $2 billion in sales a year, is available online via CVS/pharmacy. If successful, drugs that may be seen as embarrassing, such as those for weight loss or skin conditions, may follow suit.
Microsoft’s Windows 8 Fix
To repair flaws in vital system.
This is going to be a bitter pill for Steve Ballmer. In what is being called a “significant admission of failure,” Microsoft will be releasing an updated version of its operating system, as users have had difficulties with the software. Windows 8 was launched to move Microsoft into the tablet era using a tile interface as opposed to the traditional desktop home screen. The failure of Windows 8 has been pointed to as a major source of slumping PC sales.
Vertical Farms Take Root
Martha Irvine/AP
The indoor, multi-level farms that are sprouting up near urban areas in the U.S. and abroad are helping to slash the distance produce travels from farm to table.
On average, food travels 1,500 miles to get from distant fields to the typical dinner table. In colder weather, that number can rise drastically, when stores have to fly produce like blueberries and tomatoes in from tropical locales like Mexico and Peru.But the arugula and basil produced year around at FarmedHere, a farm that opened in March outside Chicago, never travels more than 25 miles to market. And because the greens are grown in an indoor, multi-level facility, they’re available all year round.
Never Mess With the Oatmeal
Koa Metter
Matthew Inman of the wildly popular Oatmeal comics has a new book, ‘My Dog: The Paradox,’ out today. He talks to Jean Trinh about his critics, charitable fundraisers, and more.
An “Internet kingpin” and a “force to be reckoned with” are just a couple of the descriptions media outlets have assigned to Matthew Inman, creator of The Oatmeal, one of the most popular comics on the Web. Even Mashable warns readers, “Rule number one on the Web: You don’t mess with The Oatmeal.”It seems a surprising take on Inman, 30. The Seattle resident is better known for his geeky, relatable humor; for capturing funny and touching moments with his pets; and for his entertaining musings on grammar, the underrated and dangerous mantis shrimp, and 20th-century physicist Nikola Tesla.
Reunited by Facebook
After years of fruitlessly searching for her birth mother, Cyndi Lane turned to social media—and found a new family.
Once, Cyndi Lane had parents and cousins and aunts and uncles, and then she had none. Eight years ago, a cousin came to visit with Lane’s newborn son, and the two had an emotional heart-to-heart. “I need to tell you something that’s going to change the rest of your life,” the cousin suddenly blurted out. It was what Lane had always subconsciously known: she had been adopted. For decades, her dark-haired Italian family refused to admit to their suspiciously blonde-haired, blue-eyed daughter that she wasn’t their biological child, even though the whole family knew otherwise.
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Colbert Rips 'Spreadsheet Error' in Austerity Supporting Harvard Study
After a University of Massachusetts student found significant errors in a study beloved by budget cutters world over by Harvard economists Kenneth Rogoff and Carmen Reinhart, Stephen Colbert does what he does best -- leaves them in the dust.
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Big Fat Green Government
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Those Generic Drugs May Not Have Been What You Thought They Were
Years of abuses at Ranbaxy raise worries about the FDA's oversight of the generics market.
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At U.S. Behest, Europe Delays Labeling Settlement Products
Ali Gharib on American pressuring Europe to lay off Israel for its settlement project.



