Last week I got invited to speak at Muskogee Public Schools in Oklahoma (https://fb.watch/4HB0qomn76/). I did three social distance assemblies, and here were my quick lessons:
Hard to hear students or get their facial expressions with masks on.
You are limited on crowd participation due to them still having to be social distance. It is also easier to laugh and engage when you are closer to your peers and hear and see them react.
The assemblies had an odd start because of the strict seating. It took a lot longer to get started.
All-in-all, students still came up to me at the end of the presentations wanting to talk and stay in touch. It felt good being back out in schools.
WHAT I READ THAT I THOUGHT WAS MOST INTERESTING 🧠
K-POP INVEST IN AMERICAN POP ARTIST 🎤
The South Korean media company that manages K-pop group BTS will pay more than $1 billion to acquire the American firm behind artists such as Justin Bieber, Ariana Grande and Demi Lovato, the companies said Friday.
Amazon has explored opening discount retail stores selling a mix of home goods and electronics, a potentially significant expansion of the company’s growing portfolio of brick-and-mortar locations.
According to two people familiar with the plans, the outlets would carry unsold inventory sitting in Amazon’s warehouses at steep discounts. The company has considered opening permanent stores and pop-up locations in malls or parking lots.
AMAZON JOB GROWTH IS THE PANDEMIC IS BETTER THAN NEARLY THE NEXT 136 COMPANIES COMBINED 🤯
The giant internet retailer added 500,000 workers around the world during the year—more than 400,000 of them in the U.S. Amazon created nearly as many jobs last year as the 136 other companies in the Journal analysis that added workers.
MILITARY SPENDS BILLIONS ON AR HEADSETS THROUGH MICROSOFT 🤖 Microsoft has won a contract worth as much as $21.9bn to provide the US army with at least 120,000 augmented reality headsets, in a significant move to bring the next generation of computing to the battlefield.
Microsoft would provide the army with “Integrated Visual Augmentation System” headsets, which would help soldiers train, home in on targets or be aware of nearby threats by overlaying contextual information on top of the real world, according to an announcement on Wednesday. Under the terms of the contract, Microsoft would provide at least 120,000 headsets to the army’s entire close combat force, a company spokesperson said.
The contract could be worth up to $21.9bn over 10 years, depending on how many devices were eventually delivered, the spokesperson added. The person declined to give a cost per device.
Balaji Srinivasan on The Future of Bitcoin and Ethereum, How to Become Noncancelable, the Path to Personal Freedom and Wealth in a New World, the Changing Landscape of Warfare, and More
The startup announced Monday in a blog post that, starting with a limited beta group of users, people will be able to tip each other real money from their profiles after connecting a debit or credit card. The payments will be processed through Stripe, the financial services company recently valued at $95 billion.
3.1 million Americans age 55 or older plan to retire early 🏌️♂️
More than 3.1 million Americans age 55 or older plan to apply for Social Security benefits earlier than they once thought because of the pandemic, according to the Census Bureau.
That’s offset by 1.4 million people in the same age group who anticipate working longer due to the impact of Covid-19, according to the bureau’s latest Household Pulse survey conducted between March 3-15.
The upshot is a net 1.7 million early retirements, which will likely mean more positions opening up for younger Americans. Older workers -- the so-called “baby boomers‘’ born in the two decades after World War II -- have accounted for essentially all of the more than 17 million jobs created in the U.S. since 2000.
