LONDON (Reuters) &#8211; Prime Minister Boris Johnson will call for deeper investment ties between Britain and Africa at a summit for leaders of 21 African countries on Monday that comes days before his country will leave the European Union.



After securing Britain’s departure from the EU, the world’s largest trading bloc, on Jan. 31, Johnson is keen to develop business ties with countries outside Europe.



At the summit in London, Johnson will call for Britain to be the “investment partner of choice” for Africa. He will highlight deals worth billions of pounds with countries on the continent, underlining the roles British companies are playing in providing anything from smart street lighting in Nigeria to environmentally friendly breweries in Kenya.



The prime minister will also announce an end to British support for thermal coal mining or coal power plants overseas, according to a statement issued before the summit’s start.



Reporting by Elizabeth Piper; Editing by Pravin Char

UK’s Boris Johnson is pushing for deeper trade ties with Africa as Brexit nears

By: <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/silvia-amaro/">Silvia Amaro</a> <a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://twitter.com/@Silvia_Amaro" target="_blank">@SILVIA_AMARO</a> 



 KEY POINTS



<ul class="wp-block-list"><li>This year marks the 50th anniversary of the event in the Swiss Alps and its theme is “Stakeholders for a Cohesive and Sustainable World.”</li><li>The annual economic gathering will run from January 21 until January 24.</li></ul>



Business leaders and politicians from around the world are gearing up to attend another session of the World Economic Forum (WEF), in Davos, Switzerland next week.



This year marks the 50th&nbsp;anniversary of the event in the Swiss Alps and its theme is “Stakeholders for a Cohesive and Sustainable World.” The annual economic gathering will run from January 21 until January 24.



CNBC takes a look at some of the most prominent names attending this year’s event.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Sanna Marin, prime minister of Finland</h2>



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://image.cnbcfm.com/api/v1/image/106335554-1579006759563gettyimages-1192801006.jpeg?v=1579006821&amp;w=678&amp;h=381" alt="GS - FINLAND Prime Minister"/><figcaption> Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin listens during a press conference with her Estonian counterpart as part of her visit to the Etonian capital Tallinn on January 10, 2020.RAIGO PAJULA </figcaption></figure>



At 34, Sanna Marin is the world’s youngest serving prime minister as well as Finland’s third female leader. She heads a four-party coalition government, whose leaders are all women too.



At the time of her appointment, in December, she said she never thought about her age or gender. “I think of the reasons I got into politics, and those things for which we have won the trust of the electorate,” she said.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission</h2>



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://image.cnbcfm.com/api/v1/image/106292391-1576147892376gettyimages-1186536349.jpeg?v=1576147931&amp;w=678&amp;h=381" alt="GP: Ursula von der Leyen Press Conference"/><figcaption> Thierry Monasse | picture alliance | Getty Images </figcaption></figure>



The former German minister for defense became the head of the EU’s executive arm in December. The new president of the European Commission has many pressing subjects to deal with, including gathering support for her new climate change package. The European Green Deal, a proposal launched in December, aims to make all the EU countries climate neutral by 2050.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Christine Lagarde, ECB president</h2>



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://image.cnbcfm.com/api/v1/image/106013048-1562823040202gettyimages-1149676900.jpeg?v=1562823073&amp;w=678&amp;h=381" alt="GS - christine Lagarde"/><figcaption> International Monetary Fund (IMF) managing Director Christine Lagarde smiles during a press conference. JOHN THYS | AFP | Getty Images </figcaption></figure>



The newly-appointed head of the European Central Bank is a well-known figure at WEF. Lagarde, the first female president of the ECB, used to visit the event in her role as managing director of the International Monetary Fund.



This time around her words in Davos will be even more closely monitored, as investors look for further clues about the central bank’s strategic review. Lagarde made headlines in late 2019 when stating she wanted the ECB to make climate change a priority.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Greta Thunberg, climate activist</h2>



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://image.cnbcfm.com/api/v1/image/106003629-1577720022147preview.jpg?v=1577720067&amp;w=678&amp;h=381" alt="GP: Climate Activist Greta Thunberg Joins Green Party Leader Lucas At An Event 190705 EU"/><figcaption> Greta Thunberg speaks at an event with other climate activists on April 22, 2019 in London, England. Chris J Ratcliffe | Getty Images News | Getty Images </figcaption></figure>



The 17-year old Swedish climate activist is due to return to Davos this year. Time’s “Person of the Year” in 2019 has a clear message to lawmakers and business leaders: commit to divest from fossil fuels now.



“We demand that at this year’s forum, participants from all companies, banks, institutions and governments immediately halt all investments in fossil fuel exploration and extraction, immediately end all fossil fuel subsidies and immediately and completely divest from fossil fuels. We don’t want these things done by 2050, 2030 or even 2021, we want this done now — as in right now,”&nbsp;<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jan/10/greta-thunberg-davos-tycoons-fossil-fuels-dismantle-climate-crisis" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Greta wrote</a>&nbsp;in The Guardian newspaper.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Ren Zhengfei, Huawei Technologies founder</h2>



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://image.cnbcfm.com/api/v1/image/105976517-1560942793576photo-sep-28-1-59-21-pm.jpg?v=1560942891&amp;w=678&amp;h=381" alt="CNBC: Huawei Ren Zhengfei 1"/><figcaption> Ren Zhengfei, CEO of Huawei speaking with CNBC at Huawei headquaters in Shenzhen, China. Justin Solomon | CNBC </figcaption></figure>



Technology has always been a key point of discussion at Davos and this year won’t be any exception, with 5G technology being a crucial part of the debate.



Huawei has led the 5G race across the world, but at the same time it sparked some division between traditional allies, such as the United States and the European Union. U.S. authorities have raised concerns about Huawei’s connections to the Chinese government, which it denies, and took steps to bar the company from selling its technology in the U.S. market. Meanwhile, the European Union is still forming its collective answer to the issues, but the German government announced it does not want to outright block the Chinese firm.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Kristalina Georgieva, managing director of the IMF</h2>



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://image.cnbcfm.com/api/v1/image/106170216-1570545937874gettyimages-1174489296.jpeg?v=1570545971&amp;w=678&amp;h=381" alt="GP: IMF-WORLD-ECONOMY-GROWTH-TRADE-DISPUTE"/><figcaption> International Monetary Fund (IMF) Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva delivers her curtain raiser speech previewing the key issues to be addressed in the Annual Meetings in Washington, DC, on October 8, 2019. NICHOLAS KAMM | AFP | Getty Images </figcaption></figure>



The Bulgarian national was appointed head of the International Monetary Fund in the fall of 2019. She will be presenting the IMF’s latest economic assessment in Davos, joined by Gita Gopinath, the institution’s chief economist.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Deepika Padukone, Bollywood star</h2>



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://image.cnbcfm.com/api/v1/image/106335607-1579007343030gettyimages-1187546842.jpeg?v=1579007423&amp;w=678&amp;h=381" alt="GS - Deepika Padukone"/><figcaption> Indian actress Deepika Padukone arrives for a trailer launch of her upcoming Bollywood movie ‘Chhapaak’ in Mumbai, India on 10 December 2019. NurPhoto </figcaption></figure>



She is an internationally-acclaimed actress and mental health ambassador. Padukone will be awarded with one of the WEF’s Crystal Awards.



She was recently pictured standing silently behind students protesting against the Indian government. The Bollywood star surprised many, given that members of the movie industry tend to avoid politics.



Deepika has been named by Time magazine as one of the 100 most influential people in the world.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Steven Mnuchin, US Treasury Secretary</h2>



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://image.cnbcfm.com/api/v1/image/104967284-RTX4JURE.jpg?v=1529452423&amp;w=678&amp;h=381" alt="RT: WEF Davos 2018: Steven Mnuchin 180125"/><figcaption> Steven Mnuchin, U.S. Secretary of the Treasury, gestures as he attends the World Economic Forum (WEF) annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland January 25, 2018. Denis Balibouse | Reuters </figcaption></figure>



U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin led the discussion in Davos in 2017, having said at a news conference that a weaker dollar was good for the United States. His comments represented a shift in U.S. policy and sparked a dollar sell-off.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">George Soros, chairman of Soros Fund Management</h2>



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://image.cnbcfm.com/api/v1/image/105493712-1539007277626gettyimages-151703283.jpeg?v=1539007302&amp;w=678&amp;h=381" alt="George Soros Speaks About The Euro"/><figcaption> Billionaire investor George Soros. Sean Gallup | Getty Images </figcaption></figure>



The billionaire investor George Soros is a familiar face in the Swiss Alps. In the <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2019/01/24/george-soros-us-and-china-are-in-cold-war-that-threatens-to-turn-into-a-hot-one.html">last edition</a>, Soros expressed his concerns over President Donald Trump’s foreign and economic policy.



“An effective policy towards China can’t be reduced to a slogan. It needs to be far more sophisticated, detailed and practical; and it must include an American economic response to the Belt and Road Initiative,” he said.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Donald Trump, US president</h2>



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://image.cnbcfm.com/api/v1/image/106331207-1578687282899gettyimages-1192765367.jpeg?v=1578687318&amp;w=678&amp;h=381" alt="GP: Donald Trump rally Toledo Ohio US-POLITICS-TRUMP"/><figcaption> US President Donald Trump speaks during a “Keep America Great” campaign rally at Huntington Center in Toledo, Ohio, on January 9, 2020. Saul Loeb | AFP | Getty Images </figcaption></figure>



U.S. President Donald Trump is set to attend this year’s WEF. Trump cancelled his participation at the event in 2019, amid a row with the Democratic Party over security spending.

Stefan Wermuth | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Here’s who’s going to Davos this year

By <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/emmie-martin/">Emmie Martin</a> <a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://twitter.com/emmiemartin" target="_blank">@EMMIEMARTIN</a> If you started saving $500 a month at the beginning of the decade and put it into a savings account that earned little to no interest, you’d have about $60,000 today.



That might seem like a lot, but that $60,000 wouldn’t stretch quite as far today as the same amount would have 10 years ago. And it will be worth even less in another decade. That’s&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2018/04/16/danielle-town-how-saving-can-cost-you-money.html" class="">because of inflation</a>, which causes prices to rise over time, making money less powerful. While a $20 bill will always be worth $20, what you’re able to buy with that amount dwindles.



Over the past 10 years, inflation has typically risen between 1% and 3% per year. In 2019, it was <a class="" rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/inflation/current-inflation-rates/" target="_blank">about 2.1%</a>. That means you’d <a class="" rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/" target="_blank">need around $72,000</a> in 2019 to command the same purchasing power $60,000 would have granted you in 2009.



<iframe width=560 height=349 src=https://player.cnbc.com/p/gZWlPC/cnbc_global?playertype=synd&#038;byGuid=7000013959 frameborder=0 scrolling=no allowfullscreen webkitallowfullscreen mozallowfullscreen oallowfullscreen msallowfullscreen ></iframe>



In order to beat inflation and ensure that your savings will work for you long term, it’s crucial to invest in the stock market, whether through an employer-sponsored 401(k) plan, a traditional or Roth IRA, an individual brokerage account or somewhere else.



Where you choose to invest your money within those investment vehicles matters too, because the amount you earn from the market hinges on the rate of return your investment garners.



Here’s exactly how much you’d have now if your investments had grown at a 4%, 6%, or 8% rate of return over the past decade, according to CNBC calculations.



<ul class="wp-block-list"><li>If you invested $500 a month for 10 years and earned a&nbsp;4% rate of return, you’d have&nbsp;$73,625&nbsp;today.</li><li>If you invested $500 a month for 10 years and earned a&nbsp;6% rate of return, you’d have&nbsp;$81,940&nbsp;today.</li><li>If you invested $500 a month for 10 years and earned an&nbsp;8% rate of return, you’d have&nbsp;$91,473&nbsp;today.</li></ul>



If you’d invested in a company such as&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2019/12/12/what-a-1000-dollar-investment-in-amazon-would-be-worth-after-10-years.html" class="">Amazon</a>&nbsp;or&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2019/10/08/what-a-1000-dollar-investment-in-google-would-be-worth-after-10-years.html" class="">Google</a>, whose stocks saw impressive returns over the past decade, your investment would have grown much faster than 8%. However, investing in individual companies is risky. Any individual stock can over- or underperform, and past returns do not predict future results.



Other investments, such as low-cost index funds, might not have been the absolute most lucrative over the last 10 years, but they’re far less risky, which&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2019/09/19/why-index-funds-are-a-smart-investment.html" class="">makes them a good long-term choice</a>. Because they’re made up of all of the companies in a certain index, such as the S&amp;P 500, they tend to weather market volatility better.



With an ETF, if one company’s stock tanks while another’s stock surges, those actions balance each other out in the index. But if you’re solely invested in a company whose stock ends up falling, you’re guaranteed a loss.



In the past decade, the S&amp;P 500 had a total return of 225%. If you started investing $500 a month in an S&amp;P 500 index fund 10 years ago, you’d have roughly $120,000 today, according to CNBC calculations. That’s just about double what you earned if you just left your money in a savings account.



What’s most important is that you start investing as early as you can to give your money as much time as possible to grow. If you’re new to the market, that might seem overwhelming, but it doesn’t have to be complicated. Here are a few easy ways to get started:



<ul class="wp-block-list"><li>Sign up for your employer’<a class="" href="https://www.cnbc.com/2019/08/02/how-much-you-need-to-put-in-your-401k-to-retire-with-1point5-million-dollars.html">s retirement plan</a> and take full advantage of any company match, which essentially gives you free money.</li><li>Consider automated investing services known as <a class="" href="https://www.cnbc.com/2018/08/02/i-invested-my-first-7000-dollars-heres-where-i-decided-to-put-it.html">robo-advisors</a> that do the heavy lifting for you.</li></ul>



*This article first appeared on CNBC <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/01/07/how-much-money-youd-have-if-you-invested-500-dollars-a-month-since-2009.html">https://www.cnbc.com/2020/01/07/how-much-money-youd-have-if-you-invested-500-dollars-a-month-since-2009.html</a> and is republished with its permission

Here’s how much money you’d have if you invested $500 a month since 2009

By <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/kate-rooney/">Kate Rooney</a> <a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://twitter.com/Kr00ney" target="_blank">@KR00NEY</a> 





KEY POINTS



<ul class="wp-block-list"><li>The Square and Twitter CEO says he plans on spending up to six months in Africa and that “Africa will define the future.”</li><li>Microsoft, Facebook and Google are all involved in the continent with accelerator programs — Visa, Mastercard and Salesforce are making venture investments in African start-ups.</li><li>Early Facebook investor Jim Breyer says Africa “presents some fundamental leapfrog opportunities” that have been unlocked through the rise in mobile phones and other platforms.</li></ul>



Jack Dorsey is in good company when it comes to Africa.



The CEO of <a class="" href="https://www.cnbc.com/quotes/?symbol=TWTR">Twitter</a> and <a class="" href="https://www.cnbc.com/quotes/?symbol=SQ">Square</a> <a class="" href="https://www.cnbc.com/2019/12/02/jack-dorseys-move-to-africa-raises-questions-for-investors.html">announced</a> in November that he would spend up to six months in the continent in 2020, with few specifics. But he’s one of dozens of U.S. CEOs and global venture capital investors seeing potential for technology disruption — and returns — throughout the continent.



“We’re seeing a lot of the investment opportunity and growth happening in the tech sector,” said Witney Schneidman, a Brookings fellow with the Africa Growth Initiative and former deputy secretary of state Clinton administration.



“Jack Dorsey is in the right place at the right time and investing the appropriate amount of time to begin to understand the complexity of the African market.”



<figure class="wp-block-image"><a href="https://twitter.com/jack"><img decoding="async" src="https://pbs.twimg.com/profile_images/1115644092329758721/AFjOr-K8_normal.jpg" alt=""/></a></figure>



<a href="https://twitter.com/jack">jack&nbsp;✔@jack</a><a href="https://twitter.com/jack/status/1199774792917929984"></a>



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://abs.twimg.com/emoji/v2/72x72/1f30d.png" alt="🌍"/></figure>



Sad to be leaving the continent…for now. Africa will define the future (especially the bitcoin one!). Not sure where yet, but I’ll be living here for 3-6 months mid 2020. Grateful I was able to experience a small part. 



<figure class="wp-block-image"><a href="https://twitter.com/jack/status/1199774792917929984/photo/1"><img decoding="async" src="https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EKZ0osqXYAcLsMk?format=jpg&amp;name=small" alt="View image on Twitter"/></a></figure>







Africa has a young and booming population, which Schneidman said makes it a “natural market for any tech entrepreneur.” The 54 countries in Africa have a combined population of 1.3 billion people with an average age of 19, and more than half of global population growth over the next 30 years will happen there, according to a recent UN report. Africa also has the largest population of underbanked and unbanked people in the world, making it appealing for companies in financial tech and payments.



Jim Breyer, an early Facebook investor and partner at Accel Partners, likened the investment opportunity to China in the early 2000s. Breyer, who’s now the founder of Breyer Capital and Co-Chairman of IDG Capital based in Beijing, said promising businesses in Africa haven’t necessarily invented something new — they’re finding “novel ways to leverage technology.”



“Africa similarly presents some fundamental leapfrog opportunities that have been unlocked through the use of mobile phones and other technology platforms,” said Breyer. “We’re seeing some of the smartest individuals from top academic institutions in the U.S. and elsewhere return to the African continent, thereby contributing to a growing talent pool of entrepreneurs and developers.”



<iframe width=560 height=349 src=https://player.cnbc.com/p/gZWlPC/cnbc_global?playertype=synd&#038;byGuid=7000112641 frameborder=0 scrolling=no allowfullscreen webkitallowfullscreen mozallowfullscreen oallowfullscreen msallowfullscreen ></iframe>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Venture bets</h2>



Major tech companies are taking notice and have launched start-up accelerator program to help get more companies off the ground.&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/quotes/?symbol=MSFT" class="">Microsoft</a>&nbsp;said in May that it will spend $100 million over five years on its first African development center, starting in Kenya and Nigeria.&nbsp;<a href="https://cchubnigeria.com/fbstart/" class="" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">Facebook</a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/quotes/?symbol=GOOGL" class="">Google</a>&nbsp;both have African accelerator&nbsp;<a href="https://developers.google.com/community/launchpad/accelerators" class="" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">programs</a>&nbsp;for local start-ups.



Chinese conglomerate Alibaba has a similar&nbsp;<a href="https://www.alibabacloud.com/startup" class="" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">program</a>. In December, Alibaba co-founder Jack Ma published an&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/05/opinion/jack-ma-africa-digital-economy.html" class="" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">op-ed</a>&nbsp;in the New York Times outlining the “next digital revolution” driven by African entrepreneurs.



Some companies are going the venture capital route and placing strategic investments in African start-ups. Visa, for example, announced a 20% stake in African consumer-payments product PalmPay.



Online payment processor Flutterwave, based in Lagos and San Francisco, is another popular bet. It has partnerships with&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/quotes/?symbol=UBER" class="">Uber</a>&nbsp;and Alipay and has raised money from&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/quotes/?symbol=CRM" class="">Salesforce</a>&nbsp;Ventures, Mastercard, and Google Developers Launchpad, among others, according to Pitchbook.



Breyer backed Ghanian healthcare company mPharma in 2017, which earlier this year acquired Kenya’s second-largest pharmacy chain. He has also backed e-commerce company Sokowatch, Africa Health Holdings, Jetstream, and Apollo Agriculture.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Infrastructure opportunity</h2>



Part of the opportunity is a lack of existing, legacy systems. Ben Lynett, another early investor in Sokowatch and founder of Lynett Capital, said that’s often an opportunity, not an obstacle.



“What we’re now seeing is missing infrastructure that tech can solve,” said Lynett, who began investing in Africa in 2016. “You have a lack of infrastructure and a potential leap-frog effect where things haven’t been build, but 2019 technology can come in and figure out what makes sense and apply it in a unique way.”



Valuations are also more “reasonable,” Lynett said. Of the more than 400 start-ups worth $1 billion or more only two are based in Africa, according to CB Insights.



Chinese venture investors have been upping their bets in the region. Two Nigerian fintech firms — Opay and PalmPay — raised more than $220 million from Chinese venture capital investors in the fourth quarter of 2019.



With those opportunities come headwinds. Lynett said scaling and finding enough technology-focused talent can be a challenge. Brookings’ Schneidman said knowing the rules and “ensuring the rules are consistent” across the 54 countries in Africa “can be a challenge” as well as finding local partners in that market can also be a headwind. But as valuations skyrocket in the U.S., there may be increased interest abroad.



“The venture capital world and Africa are still working hard to find each other,” he said. “The returns aren’t what investors are used to in the U.S. and Western Europe so we don’t see a flood at this point — but we do see people who understand the market.”



This article first appeared on CNBC <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2019/12/30/jack-dorsey-follows-tech-companies-investors-in-africa-interest.html">https://www.cnbc.com/2019/12/30/jack-dorsey-follows-tech-companies-investors-in-africa-interest.html</a> and is republished with its permission

Why Twitter’s co-founder Jack Dorsey and other major tech figures are suddenly interested in Africa

<div class="wp-block-image"><figure class="aligncenter size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="594" height="438" src="https://www.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/gettyimages-642093036-594x594-2.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-352574" srcset="https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/gettyimages-642093036-594x594-2.jpg 594w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/gettyimages-642093036-594x594-2-300x221.jpg 300w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/gettyimages-642093036-594x594-2-80x60.jpg 80w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/gettyimages-642093036-594x594-2-570x420.jpg 570w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 594px) 100vw, 594px" /><figcaption>WASHINGTON, DC &#8211; FEBRUARY 16: U.S. President Donald Trump stands during a news conference announcing Alexander Acosta as the new Labor Secretary nominee in the East Room at the White House on February 16, 2017 in Washington, DC. The announcement comes a day after Andrew Puzder withdrew his nomination. (Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images)</figcaption></figure></div>



By <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/kevin-breuninger/">Kevin Breuninger</a>



Donald Trump is now <a class="" href="https://www.cnbc.com/2019/12/18/trump-impeached-by-house-for-high-crimes-and-misdemeanors.html">the third president in U.S. history to be impeached</a> by the House.



Democrats on Wednesday night voted for two articles — abuse of power and obstruction of Congress — after eight hours of debate on the House floor, where hundreds of lawmakers traded barbs for and against impeachment.



The historic votes capped a three-month inquiry by House Democrats into Trump’s dealings with Ukraine. But the impeachment process is far from over: The proceedings now move to a trial in the Senate, which holds the final authority on whether to convict Trump and remove him from office, or to acquit him.



Republicans hold a 53-47 edge in the chamber. Conviction and removal requires 67 votes. No Senate Republicans have signaled that they would vote to convict Trump.



Here’s what to expect:



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">New management</h2>



House lawmakers may be passing the impeachment reins to the Senate, but they still have business to take care of.



After the votes to impeach Trump, House Democrats will select so-called impeachment managers to appear before the Senate during the trial and share findings from their inquiry.



<div class="wp-block-image"><figure class="aligncenter size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="594" height="427" src="https://www.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/gettyimages-1071817812-594x594-1.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-352564" srcset="https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/gettyimages-1071817812-594x594-1.jpg 594w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/gettyimages-1071817812-594x594-1-300x216.jpg 300w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/gettyimages-1071817812-594x594-1-584x420.jpg 584w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 594px) 100vw, 594px" /><figcaption>WASHINGTON, DC &#8211; DECEMBER 11: U.S. President Donald Trump (2R) argues about border security with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) (R) and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) as Vice President Mike Pence sits nearby in the Oval Office on December 11, 2018 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images)</figcaption></figure></div>



House managers have historically been members of Congress, who assume the role of prosecutors in the Senate trial. For instance, 13 Republicans from the House Judiciary Committee acted as the managers in then-President Bill Clinton’s Senate trial, presenting their case for his removal over three days.



House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., is expected to select the impeachment managers in the coming days, <a class="" rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/17/us/politics/when-is-the-impeachment-vote.html?auth=login-email&amp;login=email" target="_blank">The New York Times reported</a>. On Wednesday, after the impeachment vote, Pelosi told reporters that she wanted to see how Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, would lay out the trial’s rules before she sent over the articles. The delay could give Democrats some leverage in the process of setting the rules for the Senate trial.



<div class="wp-block-image"><figure class="aligncenter size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="594" height="396" src="https://www.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/gettyimages-1129695645-594x594-1.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-352565" srcset="https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/gettyimages-1129695645-594x594-1.jpg 594w, https://cms.cnbcafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/gettyimages-1129695645-594x594-1-300x200.jpg 300w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 594px) 100vw, 594px" /><figcaption>WASHINGTON, DC &#8211; FEBRUARY 14: U.S. Speaker of the House Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) speaks during a weekly news conference at the U.S. Capitol February 14, 2019 in Washington, DC. Speaker Pelosi spoke on various topics, including the Government Funding and Border Security legislation. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)</figcaption></figure></div>



House Judiciary Chairman Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., and House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif., are seen as likely candidates to lead the management team.&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnn.com/2019/12/16/politics/impeachment-manager-explainer-senate-trial/index.html" class="" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">CNN reported</a>&nbsp;that Michigan Rep. Justin Amash, a Republican-turned-Independent and vocal Trump critic, is being pressured to be an impeachment manager.



The president will be represented at a Senate trial by his own attorneys, likely to be led by White House counsel Pat Cipollone.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Elected, not selected</h2>



Senators in the Republican-controlled upper chamber act as a jury in a presidential impeachment trial. But unlike a jury in a criminal trial, the senators aren’t selected and screened through an&nbsp;<a href="https://dictionary.law.com/Default.aspx?selected=2229" class="" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">examination process</a>&nbsp;that filters out possible jurors who are biased or unfair.



Some senators have already made their views of the Democrats’ impeachment efforts abundantly clear.



“I would anticipate we will have a largely partisan outcome in the Senate. I’m not impartial about this at all,” McConnell said Tuesday.



In a Fox News interview last week, McConnell said: “Everything I do during this, I’m coordinating with the White House counsel.”



Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., one of Trump’s closest allies in the chamber, was even more blunt in a&nbsp;<a href="https://www.msnbc.com/11th-hour/watch/democrats-full-impeachment-report-says-trump-betrayed-the-nation-75192901554" class="" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">recent interview</a>: “I have made up my mind. I’m not trying to pretend to be a fair juror here.”



There is technically a chance that the Senate could move to dismiss the trial by simple majority. But such a move would be likely be met with a political backlash, and some Republicans have already signaled that they would prefer to win a vote on acquittal rather than dismissal.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Chamber pop-in</h2>



Supreme Court&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2019/12/18/chief-justice-john-roberts-to-play-key-role-in-trump-impeachment-trial.html" class="">Chief Justice John Roberts is constitutionally mandated to preside</a>&nbsp;over the Senate’s impeachment trial.



It is expected that Roberts, a conservative-leaning swing vote on the high court bench, will seek to minimize his role in the trial. But like it or not, the presiding officer will likely wield immense power in the trial.



The rules from Clinton’s 1999 trial, which could be largely carried over into Trump’s, give the chief justice the discretion to “rule on all questions of evidence” and “direct all the forms of” impeachment proceedings.



Roberts’ predecessor, William Rehnquist, described his own experience presiding over Clinton’s trial as a “culture shock.”



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Witnesses</h2>



Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., sent McConnell on Sunday&nbsp;<a href="https://www.democrats.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/leader-schumer-in-letter-to-leader-mcconnell-puts-forward-structure-for-a-fair-and-honest-bipartisan-impeachment-trial-in-senate-schumer-proposed-trial-structure-would-require-specific-documents-and-testimony-from-four-key-witnesses" class="" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">a proposal</a>&nbsp;to subpoena four current or former White House officials to testify during the trial, including Trump’s acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney and former national security advisor John Bolton.



McConnell&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2019/12/17/mcconnell-rejects-schumers-demand-to-call-bolton-mulvaney-for-impeachment-trial.html" class="">rejected that request</a>&nbsp;and slammed Schumer for diverging from the precedent of Clinton’s impeachment trial.



But Roberts could grant a direct request from Democrats to subpoena Mulvaney or Bolton to appear before the Senate to give live testimony, American University law professor Robert Tsai said in an interview.



Such a ruling from Roberts would likely be challenged by a Republican senator, triggering a vote, according to the Clinton-era rules. In that circumstance, Democrats might prevail if they can sway a few Republicans to vote in Roberts’ favor.



“That would be the most dramatic thing, I think, that could happen during such a trial,” Tsai said.



This article was first published on CNBC <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2019/12/18/trump-has-been-impeached-by-the-house-heres-what-happens-next.html">https://www.cnbc.com/2019/12/18/trump-has-been-impeached-by-the-house-heres-what-happens-next.html</a> and is republished with its permission.

gettyimages-642093036-594×594

Trump has been impeached by the House. Here’s what happens next

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) &#8211; South Africa&#8217;s rand inched slightly up in early trade on Monday, holding near a 3-week high it hit in the previous session, as risk sentiment strengthened following signs of progress in U.S.-China trade talks and a Brexit breakthrough.



At 0610 GMT, the rand was 0.05% firmer at 14.7470 per dollar, not far from Friday&#8217;s rally to 14.7100. 



On Friday, U.S. President Donald Trump said the United States and China had reached a &#8220;Phase 1&#8221; trade deal and suspended a threatened tariff hike, spurring a rally of emerging market currencies led by the rand.



In South Africa, with no local data due in the session, positioning will continue to be influenced to by offshore developments, traders said.



&#8220;The current levels of the local unit likely to attract some dollar buying interest, technically an attempt on 14.6000 remains a likely scenario,&#8221; traders at Nedbank said in a note.



Reports on Friday that European Union and Britain would hold intense talks over the next few days to secure a deal for Britain&#8217;s departure from the bloc as the Oct. 31 deadline looms large, also helped demand for currencies. 



Bonds were slightly firmer, with the yield on the benchmark paper due in 2026 down 0.5 basis points to 8.23%. 



(Reporting by Mfuneko Toyana; Editing by Rashmi Aich)

South Africa’s rand steady following signs of progress in U.S. – China trade talks

OSLO (Reuters) &#8211; Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed won the 2019 Nobel Peace Prize on Friday for his peacemaking efforts with Eritrea.



Ethiopia and Eritrea, longtime foes who fought a border war from 1998 to 2000, restored relations in July 2018 after years of hostility. [nL8N1U5180]



The prize, worth nine million Swedish crowns, or around $900,000, will be presented in Oslo on Dec. 10.



“Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed Ali has been awarded this year’s Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to achieve peace and international cooperation, and in particular for his decisive initiative to resolve the border conflict with neighbouring Eritrea,” the Norwegian Nobel Committee said in its citation.



The Nobel Peace Prize will be presented in Oslo on Dec. 10, the anniversary of the death of Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel, who founded the awards in his 1895 will.



Reporting by Gwladys Fouche and Terje Solsvik in Oslo, Maggie Fick and Katharine Houreld in Nairobi; Editing by Andrew Heavens

Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed wins 2019 Nobel Peace Prize

<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2019/07/06/bill-gates-measures-his-quality-of-life-by-asking-himself-3-questions.html" class="">Bill Gates</a>&nbsp;takes risks that very few people in this world will.



He took a risk in 1975, when he dropped out of Harvard to build Microsoft. In 2008, he took a risk in&nbsp;<a href="https://www.gatesfoundation.org/who-we-are/general-information/history" class="">leaving Microsoft to work full-time&nbsp;</a>at The Bill &amp; Melinda Gates Foundation.



And in 2013, he took another gamble, when his foundation contributed to a&nbsp;<a href="https://www.gatesnotes.com/Health/Our-Plan-to-Eradicate-Polio" class="">$5.5 billion initiative</a>&nbsp;to tackle one of the most ambitious public-health goals ever set: eradicating polio.



Those big bets have paid off — polio still remains a problem in certain parts of the world, but significant improvements, such as the development of effective vaccinations, have been made since Gates got involved — which proves that taking big risks and achieving great success can go hand in hand.



But how does one determine which risks are worth taking, and which ones aren’t?



That’s a question the Microsoft co-founder explored in a recent&nbsp;<a href="https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.gatesnotes.com_About-2DBill-2DGates_A-2Dbet-2Don-2Dhumanity&amp;amp;d=DwMFaQ&amp;amp;c=LO_8KzsOlAGvgA6hdGI4v02U_XLiES0sR51Zca0yIy4&amp;amp;r=fnb6sKq7SKN8iiAQiVc8NQSbL93Ztb9TeGwNUoj2-0Y&amp;amp;m=aAhBNd8-lxFKI-iBj-f-xL-V9DkaRQmJJjFwWmVYjQ8&amp;amp;s=yr5av7X0mps5r8cax_JevdltRMUuNVxvHIfp3fiANMw&amp;amp;e=" class="">blog post</a>, in which he talks about Netflix’s new series,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.netflix.com/title/80184771" class="">“Inside Bill’s Brain: Decoding Bill Gates.”</a>&nbsp;A major theme in the documentary is Gates’ willingness to invest time and money into projects that have no guarantee of success.



“Watching the series got me thinking about what the word ‘risk’ really means,” Gates wrote in his post. “Whether we invest $100,000 or $100 million, the decision is always calculated. I spend a lot of time thinking, analyzing data and talking to experts to judge whether we can really help make a difference.”



But Gates says no matter how much analysis one does, it’s important to be comfortable with uncertainty. “We are tackling problems where progress is measured not just in years, but often decades — where your end goal doesn’t change, but your path to get there might have to.”



Gates’ trick to being comfortable with uncertainty, he explained, is to continue learning and be open to new strategies that can bring him closer to his goals. “That approach has guided every big bet I’ve made in my career from Microsoft to today, including polio.”



A willingness to take risks is important, but Gates emphasized another key point: a good bet is based on proper models, not a hunch. In the decision to take on polio, Gates said he had a model in mind, and that model was the history of smallpox: the only human disease ever successfully wiped out.



Ultimately, Gates said his approach to taking risks is “very similar to what Warren Buffett does when he makes an investment on on a bet, that it will be worth 10 times as much down the road.”



“Warren spends a lot of time looking for a company that has great long-term prospects. Then he makes a big investment and holds it for many years,” Gates explained. “He’s famous for staying the course through market gyrations and economic cycles.”



Like Buffett, Gates also picks his projects carefully, looking for ones that will make a difference and create better lives for generations to come. Analyzing whether achieving a certain goal can really help make a difference is what Gates loves most about his job: “I’m never happier than when I’m diving deep into the details of a problem.”



Of course, deciding what risks to take is never easy. “I also feel pressure to make every dollar and every day count,” he wrote. “I say no to a lot more opportunities than I say yes to.”



<a class="" href="https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.linkedin.com_in_tpopomaronis_&amp;amp;d=DwMFaQ&amp;amp;c=LO_8KzsOlAGvgA6hdGI4v02U_XLiES0sR51Zca0yIy4&amp;amp;r=fnb6sKq7SKN8iiAQiVc8NQSbL93Ztb9TeGwNUoj2-0Y&amp;amp;m=P_Ys4FkTrXS6d3lDujeEcG0RASS_Te__ciXliHG8uo0&amp;amp;s=rHzz9dkDjfkID7To9v-Lu83SKuT7yQyc4bQT7r89G-o&amp;amp;e=">Tom Popomaronis</a>&nbsp;is a commerce expert, cross-industry innovation leader and Vice President of Innovation at&nbsp;<a class="" href="https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.massivealliance.com&amp;amp;d=DwMFaQ&amp;amp;c=LO_8KzsOlAGvgA6hdGI4v02U_XLiES0sR51Zca0yIy4&amp;amp;r=fnb6sKq7SKN8iiAQiVc8NQSbL93Ztb9TeGwNUoj2-0Y&amp;amp;m=P_Ys4FkTrXS6d3lDujeEcG0RASS_Te__ciXliHG8uo0&amp;amp;s=MAZG4XFe5vj2XGn8I5ATujLEG6mysjDhAM2R5QnyNpQ&amp;amp;e=">Massive Alliance</a>. His work has been featured in Forbes, Fast Company and The Washington Post. In 2014, he was named one of the “40 Under 40” by the Baltimore Business Journal.



This article first appeared on CNBC <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2019/09/28/bill-gates-brilliant-method-for-taking-risks-is-like-how-warren-buffett-invests.html">https://www.cnbc.com/2019/09/28/bill-gates-brilliant-method-for-taking-risks-is-like-how-warren-buffett-invests.html</a>&nbsp;and is republished with its permission.

Bill Gates has a brilliant method for making decisions—and he says it’s ‘similar to Warren Buffett’s’

By <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2019/09/21/bill-gates-13-best-ted-talks-you-need-to-watch.html">Tom Popomaronis</a>



<a class="" href="https://www.ted.com/talks">TED Talks</a> are one of the best online resources for anyone who loves learning. I try to dedicate some time every week to watching a few of them. But there are so many good ones that it’s impossible to choose.



Luckily, I recently came across a&nbsp;<a href="https://www.facebook.com/BillGates/photos/a.10150331291841961/10152060779241961/?type=1&amp;amp;theater" class="">2014</a>&nbsp;playlist of&nbsp;<a href="https://www.ted.com/playlists/35/bill_gates_my_13_favorite_tal" class="">Bill Gates’ favorite TED talks</a>. Naturally, I had to watch them all.



The Microsoft co-founder whittled down his favorites to 13 essentials. There’s a broad range of topics to digest in the videos. Some of them, like ones about <a class="" href="https://www.gatesfoundation.org/what-we-do/global-development/polio">polio eradication</a> and <a class="" href="https://www.gatesfoundation.org/What-We-Do/US-Program/K-12-Education">fixing the education system</a>, are specific to Gates’ own interests.



But there’s one common thread throughout the videos: They’re all about how we can positively shape both ourselves and the world.Even if you aren’t interested in algorithms and robotics, there’s something for everyone here — and you’ll definitely finish the videos feeling smarter, wiser and more hopeful.



Here’s the complete list of Gates’ favorite TED talks, and what you can learn from each one:



1.&nbsp;<a href="https://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_shows_the_best_stats_you_ve_ever_seen?referrer=playlist-bill_gates_my_13_favorite_tal#t-76874" class="">“The Best Stats You’ve Ever Seen,”</a>&nbsp;by Hans Rosling



Putting a bunch of data together in a coherent and captivating way is a challenge. But Rosling, a physician and epidemiologist who died in 2017, was brilliant in his creative use of visual aids.



In this talk, which has been viewed more than 14 million times, the stats guru dispels common myths about the so-called “developing world” by zeroing in on global trends in health and economics.



The most fascinating part of the talk is Rosling’s stunning presentation technique — using interactive bubble charts, compelling data and an energetic speaking style, which has been likened to the “drama and urgency of a sportscaster.”



Even if global health economics isn’t your thing, “The Best Stats You’ve Ever Seen” will give you insight into how the use of stats, visualization and lively body language can shift perspectives.



2.&nbsp;<a href="https://www.ted.com/talks/michael_specter_the_danger_of_science_denial?referrer=playlist-bill_gates_my_13_favorite_tal" class="">“The Danger of Science Denial,”</a>&nbsp;by Michael Specter



Specter, a staff writer for The New Yorker and author of “Denialism,” explores why the world has increasingly begun to fear scientific advances, instead of embracing them.



“I don’t need to say this, but vaccines are essential,” he says in the talk. “You take them away, and disease comes back, horrible diseases. That’s happening. We have measles in this country now. And it’s getting worse.”



Specter does a great job using several examples — vaccine claims related to autism, “Frankenfood” bans, the herbal cure craze — to illustrate the public’s fear and denial of science and reason. His talk encouraged me, and hopefully many others, to reflect on the consequences of ignoring scientific consensus.



Another great takeaway: There’s nothing more powerful than the scientific method, which involves trying stuff out, seeing if it works and changing it when it doesn’t. As Specter says, “It’s one of the great accomplishments of humanity.”



3.&nbsp;<a href="https://www.ted.com/talks/david_christian_big_history?referrer=playlist-bill_gates_my_13_favorite_tal" class="">“The History of Our World in 18 Minutes,”</a>&nbsp;by David Christian



Christian, a historian who is specifically a scholar of Russian history, starts the talk by winding back to the beginning of time: 13.7 billion years ago.



“Around us, there’s nothing,” he says. “There’s not even time or space. Imagine the darkest, emptiest thing you can and cube it a gazillion times — and that’s where we are. And then suddenly, bang! A universe appears, an entire universe.”



If you’ve ever wanted to learn the complete history of the universe, from the Big Bang to the internet, in a less amount of time than a “Simpsons” episode, here’s your chance. Or, maybe you don’t care to learn about history at all. If that’s the case, watch it anyway.



I was at first skeptical about how long my attention span could last watching this video, but after a full 18 minutes, Specter made me realize that in order to understand the challenges and opportunities in front of us, we must first learn about the journey that got us here.



4.&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/matthewherper/2012/04/15/melinda-gates-fights-to-put-birth-control-on-the-global-agenda-and-save-childrens-lives/#429919652f16" class="">“Let’s Put Birth Control Back on the Agenda,”</a>&nbsp;by Melinda Gates



Since the moment it was introduced, contraception has been a controversial topic. But Melinda Gates, co-chair of the Bill &amp; Melinda Gates Foundation, believes many of the world’s social change issues depend on ensuring that women are able to control their rate of having kids.



In the talk, Gates tells the story of a young business woman she met in Nairobi, who made and sold backpacks out of her home. When asked why she chose to have only three children, the woman said, “I wouldn’t be able to run my business if I had another child.”



Her income afforded her just enough to provide an education to all three of her children. “This is the same mental calculus that hundreds of millions of men and women have gone through,” Gates explains. “They’re able to give their children more opportunities by exercising control over when they have them.”



The list of priorities for countries both rich and poor is a massive one, but this talk makes a compelling argument about how essential something like access to birth control is.



5.&nbsp;<a href="https://www.ted.com/talks/bruce_aylward_how_we_ll_stop_polio?referrer=playlist-bill_gates_my_13_favorite_tal" class="">“How We’ll Stop Polio for Good,”</a>&nbsp;by Bruce Aylward



It’s not surprising to find this one on Gates’ list of favorites. Like Gates, Aylward, a Canadian physician and epidemiologist, is fighting to make a polio-free world.



Polio is almost completely eradicated, but as Aylward says in his talk, “Almost&nbsp;isn’t good enough with a disease this terrifying.” The disease, which affects mainly children, can cause paralysis, sometimes within a matter of hours, and death.



Aylward’s plan to continue the “scientific miracle” that ended polio in most parts of the world — and finally stop it for good — will inspire you to get the word out and encourage governments to keep their generosity up in helping to eradicate this horrible disease.



6.&nbsp;<a href="https://www.ted.com/talks/atul_gawande_how_do_we_heal_medicine?referrer=playlist-bill_gates_my_13_favorite_tal" class="">“How Do We Heal Medicine?”</a>&nbsp;by Atul Gawande



Doctors are capable of extraordinary things, and we depend on them to keep us healthy. But Gawande, a doctor and writer, argues that in order to do their job effectively, they must take a step back and look at new ways to do medicine.



Doctors used to know everything (at least in their area of expertise) and do everything themselves; those days are over, says Gawande. Physicians need to work together, and a new system for that may be as simple as a checklist, or a new way of coaching one another.



And his point isn’t exclusive to physicians; it applies to all of us, no matter what field we’re in. As Gawande says, “We’ve come to a place where we have no choice but to recognize, as individualistic as we want to be, complexity requires group success. We all need to be pit crews now.”



7.&nbsp;<a href="https://www.ted.com/talks/steven_pinker_on_the_myth_of_violence/transcript?referrer=playlist-bill_gates_my_13_favorite_tal#t-1337790" class="">“The Surprising Decline in Violence,”</a>&nbsp;by Steven Pinker



Pinker, a professor of cognitive science, makes a bold claim in this talk: We are far less likely to die violently than members of any previous generation.



“Until 10,000 years ago, all humans lived as hunter-gatherers, without permanent settlements or government,” he says.



Pinker uses visuals to show the corresponding statistic from the U.S. and Europe in the 20th century, and includes all the deaths of both World Wars. “If the death rate in tribal warfare had prevailed during the 20th century,” he says, “there would have been 2 billion deaths rather than 100 million.”



While I don’t doubt his data, the statistics are hard to believe. Has violence really declined? If the answer is yes, then could this decline be reversed? And if the answer to&nbsp;that&nbsp;is yes, how can we prevent it? These are all important questions we must ask.



8.&nbsp;<a href="https://www.ted.com/talks/nathan_myhrvold_could_this_laser_zap_malaria?referrer=playlist-bill_gates_my_13_favorite_tal" class="">“Could This Laser Zap Malaria?”</a>&nbsp;by Nathan Myhrvold



This was a fun and insightful one that I ended up watching twice. Myhrvold, who used to work at Microsoft, rolls out a live demonstration of a mosquito-zapping gizmo he and his team created.



It basically involves a “photonic fence” that uses lasers to track and obliterate disease-carrying mosquitoes. Of course, this talk was given nearly a decade ago, so it’s unclear how far Myhrvold’s invention got or where it is now.



His enthusiasm and obvious brilliance, however, are not only entertaining, but are also a simple reminder of how boldness and creativity can contribute to our efforts in tackling problems, big or small.



9.&nbsp;<a href="https://www.ted.com/talks/salman_khan_let_s_use_video_to_reinvent_education?referrer=playlist-bill_gates_my_13_favorite_tal" class="">“Let’s Use Video to Reinvent Education,”</a>&nbsp;by Salman Khan



If you’re not familiar with the Khan Academy, it’s a non-profit organization that provides a series of educational videos, in subjects like math, arts and humanity, and science.



Khan, a former hedge-fund analyst with degrees from MIT and Harvard, talks about how and why he created the Khan Academy. He also explains why interactive exercises through video are a key ingredient to humanizing the education system.



Not only can this help those in parts of the world with limited access to education, but it can also benefit the “adult learner, who’s embarrassed to go back and learn stuff they should have known before going back to college,” says Khan.



Gates, who moderates the talk, calls Khan’s efforts “amazing,” and an example of how technology can help create a more educated world.



10.&nbsp;<a href="https://www.ted.com/talks/blaise_aguera_y_arcas_demos_photosynth?referrer=playlist-bill_gates_my_13_favorite_tal" class="">“How PhotoSynth Can Connect the World’s Images,”</a>&nbsp;by Blaise Agüera y Arcas



Engineer Agüera y Arcas gives a luminous demo of a PhotoSynth, a software originated from Microsoft Live Labs and the University of Washington.



PhotoSynth uses still photos culled from the Web to build breathtaking dreamscapes, and then lets users navigate them. (While Microsoft shut down the software in 2017, its features returned later that year within the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.zdnet.com/article/microsoft-brings-back-photosynth-in-its-pix-app-for-ios/" class="">Microsoft Pix app for iOS</a>.)



We’ve come a long way in using technology to connect the world’s images, but the real inspiration here is about all the things we can do with the social environment. “This is now taking data from everybody — from the entire collective memory, visually, of what the Earth looks like — and linking all of that together,” says Agüera y Arcas.



11.&nbsp;<a href="https://www.ted.com/talks/david_blaine_how_i_held_my_breath_for_17_min/transcript?referrer=playlist-bill_gates_my_13_favorite_tal" class="">“How I Held My Breath for 17 Minutes,”</a>&nbsp;by David Blaine



“As a magician, I try to create images that make people stop and think,” Blaine says in the beginning of his talk. “I also try to challenge myself to do things that doctors say are not possible.”



One of those challenges: holding his breath for 17 minutes. I won’t give too much away (you’ll have to watch the video), but it involves meeting with a neurosurgeon, researching pearl divers and some major oxygen deprivation.



“I push through the pain to be the best that I can be,” Blaine says, as he gets a little emotional. “And that’s what magic is to me.”



Whether you’re a magician or not, he reminds us that with practice, training and lots of experimenting, you can do things that seem impossible.



12.&nbsp;<a href="https://www.ted.com/talks/susan_cain_the_power_of_introverts?referrer=playlist-bill_gates_my_13_favorite_tal" class="">“The Power of Introverts,”</a>&nbsp;by Susan Cain



In a world that prizes extroverts, looking inward is a virtue, not a problem, argues Cain, author of the best-selling book, “Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking.”



Some of the most influential people in history were introverts, she says, including Eleanor Roosevelt, Rosa Parks and Gandhi.



“Introversion,” Cain explains, “is different from being shy. Shyness is about fear of social judgment. Introversion is more about how you respond to stimulation, including social stimulation.”



Extroverts crave large amounts of stimulation, whereas introverts feel at their “most capable” when they’re in quieter, more low-key environments. But the problem is that places like our schools and workplaces are designed mostly for extroverts.



Cain offers a number of suggestions for how we can create a better balance between the two types. It’s essential, she says, especially if we want to maximize&nbsp;all&nbsp;of our talents.



13.&nbsp;<a href="https://www.ted.com/talks/vijay_kumar_robots_that_fly_and_cooperate?referrer=playlist-bill_gates_my_13_favorite_tal" class="">“Robots That Fly &#8230; and Cooperate,”</a>&nbsp;by Vijay Kumar



Kumar, dean of the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Engineering and Applied Science, gives an interesting lecture about something he and his team built: flying quadrotors, or small, agile robots that swarm, sense each other and form ad hoc teams. They can be used for construction, surveying disasters and far more.



He demonstrates the several features of the robot, which is built like a cross, with four rotors — each on an end of the cross pointed straight up. “You can send them inside buildings as first responders to look for intruders, maybe look for biochemical leaks [or they] can be used for construction and for transporting cargo,” Kumar says.



They can even be sent to collapsed buildings to assess the damage of disasters, he continues, or to map nuclear radiation levels after a nuclear accident. Even today, with all the advancements in the robotics industry, it’s amazing to watch and think about how far we’ve come.



<a class="" href="https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.linkedin.com_in_tpopomaronis_&amp;d=DwMFaQ&amp;c=LO_8KzsOlAGvgA6hdGI4v02U_XLiES0sR51Zca0yIy4&amp;r=fnb6sKq7SKN8iiAQiVc8NQSbL93Ztb9TeGwNUoj2-0Y&amp;m=P_Ys4FkTrXS6d3lDujeEcG0RASS_Te__ciXliHG8uo0&amp;s=rHzz9dkDjfkID7To9v-Lu83SKuT7yQyc4bQT7r89G-o&amp;e=">Tom Popomaronis</a> is a commerce expert, cross-industry innovation leader and Vice President of Innovation at <a class="" href="https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.massivealliance.com&amp;d=DwMFaQ&amp;c=LO_8KzsOlAGvgA6hdGI4v02U_XLiES0sR51Zca0yIy4&amp;r=fnb6sKq7SKN8iiAQiVc8NQSbL93Ztb9TeGwNUoj2-0Y&amp;m=P_Ys4FkTrXS6d3lDujeEcG0RASS_Te__ciXliHG8uo0&amp;s=MAZG4XFe5vj2XGn8I5ATujLEG6mysjDhAM2R5QnyNpQ&amp;e=">Massive Alliance</a>. His work has been featured in Forbes, Fast Company and The Washington Post. In 2014, he was named one of the “40 Under 40” by the Baltimore Business Journal.



This article first appeared on CNBC <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2019/09/21/bill-gates-13-best-ted-talks-you-need-to-watch.html">https://www.cnbc.com/2019/09/21/bill-gates-13-best-ted-talks-you-need-to-watch.html</a> and is republished with its permission.

These are Bill Gates’ 13 favorite TED talks—and they’ll make you feel smarter, wiser and more hopeful

By Lincoln
Wilcox and Efosa Ojomo



The United
Nations defines access to safe drinking water as a basic human right, but
according to their newest report, three out of ten—or 2.1 billion people—still
lack access to it. Water may be life, but unfortunately it’s not free.&nbsp;



Governments
and development organizations have spent billions of dollars over the past
several decades in an attempt to address this inequity in low- and
middle-income countries, but the unfortunate reality is that many of these
efforts have fallen flat. The United States, for example, has spent more than <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/society/katineblog/2009/mar/26/water-projects-wasted-money">$360
million</a> on rural water supply schemes in Africa and other regions that have
broken down and no longer work. When outside actors provide communities with
resources like wells and water treatment infrastructure, too often no
sustainable mechanism exists to maintain them. And even if they don’t break
down, donated solutions are inherently unscalable.&nbsp;



So how do
you create a solution that sticks? In our research, we&#8217;ve found that it starts
with innovators and entrepreneurs who create robust markets that serve people
who are currently unable to access water. These new markets provide the
necessary resources to make safe water not only affordable and accessible, but
also financially sustainable since they generate revenue that can then be used
to maintain and grow the market. Consider how these two organizations, each
with different business models, have created viable, lasting solutions that
address the access to water challenge in the regions where they operate.



Drinkwell:
Developing technology for safe water



In the
densely populated nation of Bangladesh, the country’s clean water <a href="https://www.who.int/bulletin/archives/78%289%291093.pdf">crisis</a> reached
an all-time high when it was discovered that arsenic had contaminated the
nation’s groundwater. It was this crisis that inspired Minhaj Chowdhury to form
<a href="http://drinkwellsystems.com/">Drinkwell</a>, a social enterprise that
sells low-cost, high-efficiency water filtration systems to local entrepreneurs
who build a business around providing safe water.



Empowering
entrepreneurs who can leverage their social capital to reach customers is a key
component of the company’s model, which Chowdhury credits with its
sustainability. But the company also ensures the long-term viability of its
“Water ATMs” by providing entrepreneurs with maintenance support and financial
management assistance.&nbsp;



Drinkwell
started selling its solution in 2013, but unlike to thousands of donated wells
that have provided water for limited periods before breaking down, the
organization’s financially sustainable model shows no signs of decay. To date,
more than 200,000 people now load “water credits” onto their DrinkWell cards
and use them at designated DrinkWell sites in India, Bangladesh, Laos, and
Cambodia, and the organization aims to expand its network to serve more than
5,000 communities in the next year. Drinkwell’s success offers a blueprint for
closing the gap on access to clean, affordable water.&nbsp;



Manila
Water: A public-private partnership that works



25 years
ago, as many as ten million people in the Philippines didn’t have access to
safe water. In the eastern region of Manila, the capital city, barely a quarter
of people had access to potable water. The situation got so bad that the
government was compelled to enact a National Water Crisis Act, which paved the
way for innovators to work with the government to solve this problem. This gave
birth to <a href="https://www.manilawater.com/corporate/about-us/our-story">Manila
Water</a>, a public-private partnership between the government and the
Philippines&#8217; oldest conglomerate, Ayala Corporation.&nbsp;



As a
private company, Manila Water had a strong incentive to distribute water to as
many customers as possible. To do this, its executives invested in new systems
for production, treatment, and distribution of water; trained an entirely new
workforce; and reshuffled the existing organization structure to focus on
increasing access. At the same time, the government retained its ability to
regulate the industry to best serve the people of Manila. This hybrid
public-private relationship between Ayala and the government has paid off
immensely as more than 99% of people in the region now have access to
affordable, clean water. In addition, Ayala is exporting its expertise to
neighboring countries, including Vietnam, Thailand, Myanmar, and Indonesia.
Sometimes the government has the will, but the private sector might just have
the way.



In a world
where water, the most basic resource we need to survive, is still out of reach
for more than two billion people, a fundamental rethinking of how we address
the challenge of providing this critical resource is necessary. No one
organization can solve the global water challenge, but organizations like
Drinkwell and Manila Water have shown a way to develop innovative
models—through leveraging entrepreneurship, new technologies, and government
partnerships —to tackle this seemingly intractable issue. And unlike more
conventional answers to the problem, these solutions are fundamentally
sustainable and scalable. That’s why they remain our best hope for making water
accessible to all.



Lincoln
Wilcox is a
research associate on the global prosperity team at the Clayton Christensen
Institute.



Efosa Ojomo is a senior research fellow at the
Clayton Christensen Institute where he leads its Global Prosperity research.

Op-Ed: The best hope for solving the global water crisis

By <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/rafael-badziag/">Rafael Badziag</a> 



There are billions of people in the world, and only a tiny fraction of them are <a class="" href="https://www.cnbc.com/2019/01/24/warren-buffett-and-bill-gates-agree-giving-up-this-one-thing-will-make-you-more-successful.html">billionaires</a>.



What distinguishes the billionaire’s thought process from everyone else’s? What are their secrets to achieving outrageous success? What are their belief systems? What gives them the energy to pursue ambitious goals?



To find the answers, I spent six years conducting face-to-face interviews with 21&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2019/03/26/money-mistakes-millionaires-like-warren-buffett-bill-gates-google-eric-schmidt-never-make.html" class="">self-made billionaires</a>, anddocumented the principles that led them to great success in the book,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Billion-Dollar-Secret-Principles-Billionaire-ebook/dp/B07SB6HQFF/?tag=billionair046-20" class="">“The Billion Dollar Secret.”</a>



But throughout my journey, I learned something that I found deeply insightful: Just like the rest of us,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2019/06/21/self-made-billionaires-the-6-habits-of-massive-wealth-and-success.html" class="">billionaires</a>&nbsp;have regrets.



Based on my conversations, here are some of the most common ones:



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">1. Not jumping on great opportunities</h2>



With great risks comes great rewards. But you’ll have a hard time reaping the rewards if you don’t take action fast. Many of the billionaires I spoke to learned this lesson the hard way.



Tim Draper, a venture capitalist and billionaire, is one of them. When asked what advice he had for people who would like to be as successful as he is, he answered: “Choose a goal and go after it.”



But even Draper has failed to act. He told me a story about when he first became interested in investing in Facebook. At the time, Sean Parker, who was president of the company, first said the company was valued at $20 million. But Draper got into a bidding war over the company that eventually went to a $115 million valuation.



Draper ended up backing out. That’s a regret, he said, because Facebook grew in value many times over.



His firm was also outbid when attempting to invest in Yahoo. “I should have just gone ahead and written the check with a note and let them convert it into whatever,” he said, of making the first offer on Yahoo. “When you spot a great opportunity, don’t hesitate.”



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">2. Not living in the present</h2>



Chip Wilson, founder of the athletic clothing company Lululemon, has a great mantra: Live in the present. But it took him a few years to get there.



When building his first sports apparel company, Westbeach Snowboard Ltd., Wilson said he found himself struggling until he made a life-changing realization.



“I was living my life in the past, in angst about things that I’d done in the past, or I was living my life in the future,” he said, adding that he was never fully appreciative of the people he was with or the things he accomplished in that moment.



“It seemed to me I was always in survival mode. I was always thinking, ‘What am I going to do in the future?’ I recognized that I spent probably 40 years of my life&nbsp;not&nbsp;saying, ‘Oh, isn’t life great?’”



As soon as Wilson changed his mindset, he started telling himself: “I live a&nbsp;great&nbsp;life.” And that helped him move forward by thinking about how he could become a better person and create a difference in the world.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">3. Not starting soon enough</h2>



Despite their success, many billionaires regret not pursuing their goals earlier in life.



Peter Hargreaves is the founder of Hargreaves Lansdown, the largest financial services company in the UK. When asked what he would do differently if he could start his business all over again, he answered: “Well, I’d probably start sooner.”



I received a similar answer from Naveen Jain, who started his first company, InfoSpace, when he was in his late 30s. “I wish I had done it when I was in my 20s,” he said. “I would have 20 years more experience to be doing things.”



Why is that important? “Because you learn a lot more by doing it yourself than by learning from someone else,” he explained. “So if I had done it for 20 years, maybe my first company wouldn’t have been successful, and a second company wouldn’t have been successful&#8230;but a third company&nbsp;would&nbsp;have been.”



As&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/profile/ron-sim/#7345f0f849ae" class="">Ron Sim</a>, the Singaporean billionaire who built OSIM International, a maker of high-end massage chairs, told me: “There is never a right moment to start a business or have a child. But if you don’t do it, nothing will happen. So don’t wait for the right moment. The sooner you do it, the better.”



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">4. Not being bolder</h2>



Billionaires are also humans. They weren’t born the greatest risk-takers, defying all fears. I asked Jack Cowin, who founded Competitive Foods Australia (which operates Burger King’s Australian franchise as Hungry Jack’s), about what he would have done differently if he could go back to being 21.



“I’d be bolder. I’d take more risks,” he said. “The fear of failure makes you more conscious. The fear of debt makes you more conscious. So I would have more confidence in myself that I could find my way through the maze.”



However, it’s important to balance boldness with caution, he added. Otherwise, you’ll go broke. “If you make a mistake, you make a misjudgment. It’s easy to do.”



In the restaurant business, “you’re never that far away from the danger of someone dying from food poisoning or from someone making a mistake regarding procedures,” he explained. “Everything requires constant diligence. It’s a risk that you live with all the time, so you’ve really got to manage it properly.”



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">5. Not changing fast enough</h2>



Frank Hasenfratz, founder of automobile parts manufacturer Linamar, says, “Every day, you’ve got to change. If you don’t change, you die.”



Hasenfratz is well aware of the changing world and of the need to adapt to changing conditions.



To illustrate his point, Hasenfratz said he once checked a Chamber of Commerce document from 1964, when he started his own business. At the time, the documented listed about 100 manufacturing plants. But now, he said, almost all of them are gone.



“I’ve been here for 60 years,” he said. “And if you’re not a little bit apprehensive, if you don’t think, ‘I’ve got to do better tomorrow, I’ve got to get a different product or a more advanced product’ — if you don’t do that, you won’t be here for long.”



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Mistakes and failures are necessary</h2>



Despite the many regrets that these billionaires have shared with me, what surprised me was how little they actually dwell on the things they didn’t do. In fact, almost all of them expressed that mistakes and failures are inevitable.



Cowin’s attitude is, “If you haven’t had a few failures, you haven’t tried enough. You’ve been lazy.”



So the lesson here is to avoid looking back at your actions in a disapproving way. Instead, focus on what you can do now to improve the future.



When it comes to regrets, Cowin said his basic make-up and attitude is a positive one. “If I was 21 again, there wouldn’t be too many things I’d do differently,” he told me.&nbsp;“Sometimes I might’ve gone harder on this or on that. But I think it’s important not to obsesses over the things that didn’t work.”



<a class="" href="http://thebilliondollarsecret.com/">Rafael Badziag</a> is an author and expert in the psychology of entrepreneurship. He has interviewed more than 21 self-made billionaires from all over the world to learn about their secrets to success. His new book, <a class="" href="https://www.amazon.com/Billion-Dollar-Secret-Principles-Billionaire-ebook/dp/B07SB6HQFF/?tag=billionair046-20">“The Billion Dollar Secret,”</a> is an Amazon best-seller. Rafael has been featured on NBC, CBS, USA Today and The Wall Street Journal.



This article first appeared on CNBC <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2019/09/04/5-biggest-life-regrets-of-self-made-billionaires.html">https://www.cnbc.com/2019/09/04/5-biggest-life-regrets-of-self-made-billionaires.html</a> and is republished with its permission.

Here are the 5 most common biggest regrets by 21 self-made billionaires

By <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/tom-huddleston-jr/">Tom Huddleston Jr.</a>



Bill Gates and Steve Jobs are two of the most high-profile tech titans of the past century, and they also had a famously <a class="" href="https://fortune.com/2011/10/24/when-steve-met-bill-it-was-a-kind-of-weird-seduction-visit/">fierce rivalry</a> that evolved into a friendship based on <a class="" href="https://www.cnbc.com/2017/10/05/steve-jobs-untimely-death-taught-bill-gates-this-important-lesson.html">mutual respect</a> until Jobs passed away in 2011.



Gates, the billionaire co-founder of Microsoft and the world’s second-wealthiest person, has&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2019/07/07/bill-gates-says-jobs-was-a-wizard-in-getting-staff-to-keep-apple-alive.html" class="">praised</a>&nbsp;the Apple co-founder in the past for Jobs’ leadership qualities and his uncanny ability to motivate his employees. But, there is one specific trait of Jobs’ that Gates is still particularly envious of, Gates says in a new interview with&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-mind-of-bill-gates-revealed-on-netflix-11568107801" class="">The Wall Street Journal</a>.



The former Microsoft CEO talks about how he’s had to work hard to become a better public speaker throughout his career and admits that public speaking was one area where Jobs easily had him beat, according to the interview, published on Tuesday to promote&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2019/08/30/how-bill-gates-brain-works-netflix-documentary.html" class="">the new Netflix documentary</a>&nbsp;on Gates’ life and career that premieres on Sept. 20.



“Steve Jobs was always more of a natural at that,” Gates tells WSJ about Jobs’ public speaking abilities, which Gates says allowed Jobs to sell people on any product, even a subpar one. “He could talk about what, in the case of NeXT Computer [his follow-up after being ousted from Apple], was not that good of a machine, yet mesmerize people to death if they happened to be in the auditorium.”



Gates goes on to say that he wishes he could emulate his former friend and rival in that regard, especially with respect to raising awareness for various&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/13/philanthropy-50-how-much-bezos-gates-zuckerberg-charities-gave-away.html" class="">philanthropic causes</a>&nbsp;that Gates and his wife,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2019/04/25/melinda-gates-reveals-how-she-negotiated-equality-in-her-marriage.html" class="">Melinda</a>, champion through their non-profit foundation.



“I wish I could be as magical because I have causes that are in some ways more impactful and I need to make sure they don’t get ignored,” Gates says in the interview, referring to the work the Bill &amp; Melinda Gates Foundation does to address global issues, from disease prevention research to fighting poverty.



Gates notes that “some things, like eradicating polio, are inherently inspiring,” but he still believes that Jobs’ ability to sell any product or idea would come in handy, even though Gates has worked to improve his public speaking over the years. (At least one billionaire CEO, Zoom founder Eric Yuan,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2019/04/18/zoom-ipo-bill-gates-speech-inspired-founder-to-move-to-us.html" class="">credits a Bill Gates</a>&nbsp;public speaking engagement from the 1990s for inspiring him to start an internet business.)



“I myself am not a preacher,” he says. “I’ve learned a little bit about public speaking, and how to articulate how to solve these problems over time. I’ve gotten OK on that in a certain sense.”



For what it’s worth, the Bill &amp; Melinda Gates Foundation is one of the world’s largest private philanthropic foundations, with an endowment of more than&nbsp;<a href="https://www.gatesfoundation.org/who-we-are/general-information/foundation-factsheet" class="">$50 billion</a>. And, Gates and fellow billionaire Warren Buffett, have also convinced hundreds of wealthy people to donate billions of dollars of their wealth to charity as part of their&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2017/05/31/14-billionaires-signed-bill-gates-and-warren-buffetts-giving-pledge.html" class="">Giving Pledge campaign</a>.



This isn’t the first time that Gates has praised Jobs’ ability to get people on board with his particular vision. Jobs had a way of “casting spells” to motivate his employees,&nbsp;<a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/july-7-2019-how-to-lead-a-fareed-zakaria-gps-special/id377785090?i=1000443856975" class="">Gates told CNN</a>&nbsp;in a July interview.



“I was like a minor wizard because he would be casting spells, and I would see people mesmerized, but because I’m a minor wizard, the spells don’t work on me,” Gates said.



This article first appeared on CNBC <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2019/09/12/steve-jobs-trait-bill-gates-envied-the-most.html">https://www.cnbc.com/2019/09/12/steve-jobs-trait-bill-gates-envied-the-most.html</a> and is republished with its permission.

Bill Gates says this is the Steve Jobs trait he envied the most

By <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/kathleen-elkins/">Kathleen Elkins</a>



Berkshire Hathaway chairman and CEO Warren Buffett believes in working with people you respect.



“Try to work for whomever you admire most,” the investing legend told author Gillian Zoe Segal in an interview for her 2015 book,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1419715704/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;camp=1789&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;creative=9325&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;creativeASIN=1419715704&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;linkCode=as2&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;tag=getti043-20&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;linkId=X6UNEWPT2UNOA7CQ%20%5Ct%20_blank" class="">“Getting There: A Book of Mentors.”</a>&nbsp;“It won’t necessarily be the job that you’ll have 10 years later, but you’ll have the opportunity to pick up so much as you go along.”



It’s advice that served him well: When he was starting his career, well before he made his billions, Buffett took a job with his mentor and hero, Benjamin Graham, without even asking about the salary. “I found that out at the end of the month when I got my paycheck,” he told Segal.



The decision paid off, career-wise. Buffett, who was one of Graham’s students at Columbia Business School, says that his former professor largely <a class="" href="https://www.cnbc.com/2019/05/10/billionaire-warren-buffett-tribute-to-investor-teaches-how-to-live-a-successful-and-happy-life.html">shaped his career and investment philosophy</a>.



While&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2017/05/25/most-employees-dont-negotiate-their-salary.html" class="">salary is an important factor&nbsp;</a>when thinking about your career, “You don’t want to take a job just for the money,” said Buffett, “and you should never work for people who make your stomach churn or who keep you up at night.”



Buffett’s longtime business partner,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/charlie-munger/" class="">Charlie Munger</a>, who has also made a name for himself as one of today’s most successful investors, offers similar career advice. “Don’t work for anyone you don’t respect and admire,”&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2017/08/16/warren-buffetts-partner-charlie-munger-has-3-rules-for-a-career.html" class="">he has said</a>.&nbsp;“Work only with people you enjoy.”



The two billionaires agree that this advice is most effective if you’ve chosen a career path that interests you. “I have never succeeded very much in anything in which I was not very interested,” Munger said. “If you can’t somehow find yourself very interested in something, I don’t think you’ll succeed very much, even if you’re fairly smart.”



Passion pays off, Buffett told Segal: “You want to be excited when you get out of bed in the morning. I tap dance to work every day.”



This article first appeared on CNBC <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2019/09/04/warren-buffetts-top-career-advice.html">https://www.cnbc.com/2019/09/04/warren-buffetts-top-career-advice.html</a> and is republished with its permission.

Before Warren Buffett made his fortune, he took a job without asking what the salary was—here’s why

By <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/kif-leswing/">Kif Leswing</a>



<a class="" href="https://www.cnbc.com/quotes/?symbol=AAPL">Apple</a>’s iPhone launch on Tuesday didn’t shock anyone.



The company launched new iPhones a few months ahead of the critical holiday season, as it has done every fall since 2011. The new iPhone 11 models feature faster chips, better cameras, and longer-lasting batteries than the 2018 models — solid improvements, but not a revolution.



The most important announcement Apple made on Tuesday was about price. Two years after Apple broke new high-end ground with its first $1000 iPhone, Apple reduced the price of its least expensive current-year iPhone. When the iPhone 11 goes on sale for $699, it will be $50 less than the phone it’s replacing, the iPhone XR.



The iPhone price decrease gives Apple a new way to get new customers into its system of connected products. It’s a move that makes sense as iPhone unit sales peaked in 2015 and haven’t fully recovered. (Apple doesn’t even report iPhone unit sales anymore.)



The online services Apple launched on Tuesday were also lower in price than expected, and give Apple a way to entice new customers with content that’s more expensive or impossible to get elsewhere.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Not everyone needs all the bells and whistles</h2>



$699 for the iPhone 11 is a significant price drop, especially after Apple raised the price of its second-best new phone from $699 for the iPhone 8 in 2017 to $749 for the XR last year. Apple’s high-end phones, the “Pro” models, still start at $999 and $1099.



The new iPhone 11 has a better camera than last year, and a faster processor, but most people will never notice the difference. Smartphone cameras have been very good for a few years and while some apps need a lot of processing power, some of the most common apps, like Facebook, or Snapchat, or Uber, don’t.



Apple also dropped the price of last year’s iPhone XR to $599, showing how price drops can trickle down the lineup as Apple likes to keep older phones around as low-cost models.



That’s exactly what it’s doing with its Watch hardware, too.



Apple’s newest watch, the Series 5, sports a screen you don’t have to turn on to check the time, the more important announcement might be that that Apple is now selling the 2-year-old Series 3 for $199 — much closer to an impulse buy than the $399 or $499 for the new models.



“While it doesn’t have all the bells and whistles as Watch 5, it will attract many first-time buyers,” Moor Insights analyst Patrick Moorhead said in a DM.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Services surprise on price</h2>



Apple also revealed how much it was going to charge for its streaming TV service, Apple TV+, when it launches later this year:&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2019/09/10/apple-tv-pricing-vs-disney-hulu-cbs-and-others.html" class="">$4.99 per month</a>, significantly less than&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/quotes/?symbol=DIS" class="">Disney</a>+ or&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/quotes/?symbol=NFLX" class="">Netflix,</a>&nbsp;although with significantly less content. Apple’s also going to give users a free year with purchase on an Apple device, which will make the first year free for most prospective subscribers, except Jennifer Aniston fans who are committed to Windows and Android. (The service’s flagship program is a drama called “The Morning Show” starring Jennifer Aniston and Steve Carrell.)



“The biggest news was the $4.99 price point for what look to be some unique titles. I do believe Apple will have at least one hit across the catalog, making it a no-brainer for customers in every ecosystem,” Morehead said.



Apple also introduced a surprisingly inexpensive $5 per month all-you-can-game subscription called Apple Arcade that parents can share with kids for free. If the games are competitive, that’s a great value for families — instead of buying a single console game for $60, you can get a year of access to a bundle of games for the same price.



“The family-friendly titles and cross Apple platform are nice, but I believe the biggest news was the $4.99 per month price point for an all-family plan,” Moorhead said. “For premium Apple customers, this will be a no-brainer.”



Indeed, dedicated Apple users — “premium Apple customers” — remain incredibly interested in whatever Apple has to launch. Tuesday’s device launch was streamed on YouTube, and over 1.5 million people watched it concurrently. 1.5 million tweets about the event were sent, according to statistics from Sprout Social.



But the main question after Tuesday’s event is whether the price cut for the iPhone 11 will entice new customers to buy a new iPhone, eventually leading to them buying a new Apple Watch or paying for Apple TV+ — or whether Apple’s simply introducing more options for people who already live in Apple’s world.



This article first appeared on CNBC <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2019/09/10/iphone-11-top-feature-price.html">https://www.cnbc.com/2019/09/10/iphone-11-top-feature-price.html</a> and is republished with its permission.

The most important feature of the new iPhone 11 is its price

By <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/arjun-kharpal/">Arjun Kharpal </a>



2019 is a big year for&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/quotes/?symbol=BABA" class="">Alibaba</a>. The Chinese e-commerce giant is celebrating its twentieth anniversary and its high-profile founder Jack Ma,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2018/09/10/alibaba-jack-ma-succession-plan-daniel-zhang-to-take-over-as-chairman.html" class="">is stepping down as chairman on Tuesday</a>.



Since its founding in 1999, Alibaba has gone from being a traditional e-commerce company to a conglomerate that has businesses from logistics to food delivery and cloud computing. It is now a company valued over $460 billion.



Here are some of key moments in Alibaba’s history.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">April 1999: The journey begins</h2>



Alibaba was established by a group of 18 founders led by<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/jack-ma/" class="">Jack Ma</a>.&nbsp;The group worked out of Ma’s apartment in the Chinese city of Hangzhou, where Alibaba is now headquartered.



Its first website was Alibaba.com, an English-language wholesale marketplace. That same year, Alibaba launched a domestic wholesale market place.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">January 2000: SoftBank invests</h2>



Alibaba got a $20 million investment from a group of investors led by SoftBank.



“We didn’t talk about revenues, we didn’t even talk about a business model,” said Ma about SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son, according to a report by the Wall Street Journal at the time. “We just talked about a shared vision. Both of us make quick decisions.”



That investment helped Alibaba to grow.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">May 2003: Taobao is born</h2>



Taobao is an online shopping platformin China run by Alibaba, where third-party sellers can push their products.



In Alibaba’s 2015 fiscal year, Taobao’s gross merchandise volume reached1.59 trillion yuan ($223.9 billion). That has grown to 3.11 trillion yuan in the 2019 fiscal year.



Revenue from Taobao is a crucial part of Alibaba’s core commerce business.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">December 2004: Alipay launch</h2>



Alipay is one of China’s two big payments platforms, along with rival WeChat Pay which is owned by&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/quotes/?symbol=700-HK" class="">Tencent</a>. It’s a system based on QR codes, a kind of bar code, that’s found at merchants’ payment counters. Buyers in stores can scan the code to make payments. But Alipay can also be used in online stores.



However, Alipay has proved to be a controversial asset throughout Alibaba’s history, causing the company and its founder Ma, to clash with key shareholders Yahoo and SoftBank.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">August 2005: Yahoo becomes biggest shareholder</h2>



Yahoo poured $1 billion into Alibaba for a 40% stake in the company, making it the e-commerce firm’s largest shareholder.



As part of the deal, Alibaba took control of Yahoo’s China business.



“Together, we will create one of the largest Internet companies in China, and our combined assets will make us the only company that has a leading position in all the key sectors that are driving explosive Internet growth in China such as search, commerce and communications,” Terry Semel, Yahoo’s CEO at the time said in a press release.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">November 2007: Hong Kong IPO</h2>



Before Alibaba’s debut in the U.S. in 2014, it carried out an initial public offering (IPO) in Hong Kong in 2007.



The public listing raised $13.1 billion Hong Kong dollars in gross proceeds. On its opening day, Alibaba shares surged from the offer price of $13.50 Hong Kong dollars to as high as $39.50 Hong Kong dollars.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">April 2008: The birth of Tmall</h2>



Alibaba launched a product called Taobao Mall which was spun off years later and became Tmall. Along with Taobao, Tmall is now one of Alibaba’s most important e-commerce properties in terms of revenue.



Tmall has positioned itself as a place where foreign brands can set up an online store and sell to Chinese consumers.



Luxury fashion brands, electronics makers and even&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/quotes/?symbol=SBUX" class="">Starbucks</a>&nbsp;are on Tmall.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">September 2009: Cloud business launched</h2>



Alibaba launched its cloud business in 2009 and it is now one of the biggest in China.



Cloud computing is the second-largest revenue source for the company, and its fastest-growing businesses.



Alibaba CEO Daniel Zhang&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2018/11/09/alibaba-ceo-says-cloud-computing-will-be-its-main-business-in-future.html" class="">told CNBC</a>&nbsp;last year that cloud will be the firm’s “main business” in the future.



“Cloud computing is our long-term strategy. We strongly believe that every business in the future will be powered by cloud,” he said.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">November 2009: Singles Day extravaganza</h2>



Singles Day — also known as the Double 11 festival — is China’s largest shopping event of the year. It was pioneered by current Alibaba CEO Zhang.



Retailers offer huge discounts on that day, and it’s turned into a multibillion dollar festival.



Alibaba saw gross merchandising value — the value of goods sold via its platforms —&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2018/11/09/alibaba-singles-day-how-the-giant-shopping-event-began.html" class="">hit $7.8 million in the 2009 edition</a>&nbsp;of Singles Day. That figure stood at&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2018/11/09/cnbc-transcript-daniel-zhang-group-ceo-alibaba.html" class="">$30.8 billion for the 2018 event</a>, according to the exchange rate at the time.



“I never expected that we could actually transform this day into a commercial day &#8230; for the whole society,” Zhang told CNBC in an interview last year.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">May 2011: Alipay controversy</h2>



Alibaba sold control of Alipay to a group controlled by Jack Ma. At the time, the company said it was because of new rules issued by the country’s central bank — the People’s Bank of China. The regulations for third-party online payment required them to get specific licenses.



However Yahoo, Alibaba’s biggest shareholder at the time, said the sale of Alipay happened without its knowledge, a statement that the Chinese e-commerce giant denied.



The episode raised concerns about Alibaba’s governance structure.



Yahoo, SoftBank and Alibaba eventually came to a deal that same year: Alibaba would be paid at least $2 billion but no more than $6 billion if Alipay went public; Alipay was also required to pay licensing fees and continue serving Taobao.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">June 2012: Hong Kong delisting</h2>



Just five years after its debut on the Hong Kong stock exchange, Alibaba took the company private through a de-listing.



The company paid $2.45 billion to buy the 27% of Alibaba.com held by the public. This equated to $13.50 Hong Kong dollars a share, the same offering price for the IPO back in 2007.



“Taking Alibaba.com private will allow our company to make long-term decisions that are in the best interest of our customers and that are also free from the pressures that come from having a publicly listed company,” Ma said in comments at the time.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">September 2012: Alibaba’s Yahoo buyback</h2>



Alibaba bought back half of Yahoo’s 40% stake for $7.6 billion. Yahoo received approximately $6.3 billion in cash and $800 million in preference shares in Alibaba.



This was a big return for Yahoo after its initial $1 billion investment in 2005.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">September 2014: New York IPO</h2>



Alibaba went public on the New York Stock exchange in what was the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2014/09/22/alibaba-the-biggest-ever-ipo-after-more-shares-sold.html" class="">biggest IPO in history</a>.



The e-commerce giant raised around $25 billion in its New York IPO. It’s now one of Asia’s largest technology firms by valuation.



Alibaba’s stock is up over 150% from its&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2014/09/18/alibaba-prices-shares-at-68-a-share-dj.html" class="">$68 per share listing price</a>.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">October 2014: Ant Financial is created</h2>



After the controversial spin-off of Alipay, Ant Financial was created to encompass not just the payment system but other financial services.



The creation of this affiliate company signaled Alibaba’s intentions to push into financial technology or fintech.



Ant Financial,now China’s largest fintech firm,&nbsp;is&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2018/05/29/chinas-ant-financial-raises-10-billion-at-150-billion-valuation.html" class="">reportedly valued at around $150 billion</a>.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">August 2015: $4.6 billion Suning deal</h2>



Alibaba invested 28.3 billion yuan, which was around $4.56 billion, into Chinese bricks-and-mortar electronics retailer Suning. This followed an investment the year before into department store chain, Intime.



It signaled Alibaba’s intent to push on with its so-called “new retail” strategy where it looks to merge its online business with offline stores. The aim is to bring together payments, e-commerce, food delivery and other parts of its business into one big ecosystem.



It’s a strategy that the company continues to push on with today.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">April 2016: International push</h2>



Since it’s founding 20 years ago, Alibaba’s focus has very much been on its domestic market: helping foreign and local brands sell to Chinese consumers.



But in April 2016, the company&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2016/04/12/alibaba-group-invests-1-billion-dollars-in-lazada-group-and-eyes-southeast-asia.html" class="">took a controlling stake in Singapore-based Lazada</a>, an e-commerce company that serves several markets in Southeast Asia.



That marked Alibaba’s first major international push in the e-commerce space.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">February 2018: Alibaba buys Ant stake</h2>



Alibaba bought a 33% stake in Ant Financial. It was able to do so because of a clause in a contract between the two companies from 2014 when Ant was created.



There have been reports that Ant Financial is gearing up for an IPO, though the company has not made any official announcements.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">September 2019: Jack Ma steps down as chairman</h2>



<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2018/09/10/alibaba-jack-ma-succession-plan-daniel-zhang-to-take-over-as-chairman.html" class="">In September 2018</a>, Alibaba said Jack Ma will step down as chairman of the board one year later — on September 10, 2019.



Current CEO Zhang takes Ma’s place as chairman.



Ma intends to stay on the Alibaba board of directors until the 2020 annual shareholders meeting. 



This article first appeared on CNBC <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2019/09/10/jack-ma-steps-down-as-alibaba-baba-chairman-history-of-the-company.html">https://www.cnbc.com/2019/09/10/jack-ma-steps-down-as-alibaba-baba-chairman-history-of-the-company.html</a> and is republished with its permission.

Billionaire Jack Ma steps down as Alibaba’s chairman. Here are key moments in the company’s history

By <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/taylor-locke/">Taylor Locke</a> 



<a class="" href="https://www.cnbc.com/bill-gates/">Bill Gates</a>’ biggest fear is that his brain will “stop working.” That’s what Gates says in the upcoming three-part Netflix documentary“Inside Bill’s Brain: Decoding Bill Gates.”



With the documentary, which drops Sept. 20, director and executive producer Davis Guggenheim aims to find out what goes on inside the mind of the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/profile/bill-gates/#57df5cba689f" class="">second richest man in the world</a>. But some things about how Gates’ brain works can be gleaned from the series short&nbsp;<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCv29JKmHNY" class="">trailer</a>, released Thursday.



Gates is a&nbsp;″multiprocessor” says his wife Melinda Gates in the trailer. “He will be reading something else but then processing at the same time. It’s chaos!” Melinda says.



Gates&nbsp;″thrives on complexity,” Melinda says. “He makes aframework in his mind, then he starts slotting in the information. If something doesn’t line up, he gets really frustrated.”



“It’s scary,” says Melinda.“But when Bill stills himself, he can pull ideas together that other people can’t see.”



The idea of having a “framework” is something Gates has&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2019/03/21/how-bill-gates-remembers-what-he-reads.html" class="">talked about himself</a>.



When explaining how he remembers what he reads, Gates told&nbsp;<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8xwh88cI_d8" class="">Quartz</a>:“If you read enough, there’s a similarity between things that make it easy, because this thing is like this other thing. If you have a broad framework, then you have a place to put everything.”



“At first it is very daunting,” Gates told Quartz, “but then as you get the kind of scope, then all these pieces fit in.



“It’s fun to say, okay, this is where this belongs and does this contradict something I knew before? And I better look that up, I better figure it out.”



According to the documentary trailer, Gates looks at problems from usual angles, which allows him to innovate, and “he’s at his best when the deck is stacked against him” — skills that come in handy as he tries to tackle some of the world’s most difficult problems like disease and poverty.



In addition to giving a small glimpse into Gates’ thinking, the trailer for the documentary also gives away some fun facts: Gates’ favorite food is a hamburger, he doesn’t eat breakfast and dogs are his favorite animal.



<iframe loading="lazy" width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/HBEDE1yLopw?start=1" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>



This article first appeared on CNBC <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2019/08/30/how-bill-gates-brain-works-netflix-documentary.html">https://www.cnbc.com/2019/08/30/how-bill-gates-brain-works-netflix-documentary.html</a> and is republished with its permission.

This is how Bill Gates’ brain works

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