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International Business Weekly is an American entertainment magazine. We cover business News & feature exclusive interviews with many notable figures
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15/06/2024

“I don’t think anyone should be working five days a week. It’s just pointless.”

Music mogul Simon Cowell built his multimillion-dollar brand as a cut-throat judge with an eye for a hit and an obsession with the minor details that would send his schedule into the early hours. If that man could see the “new,” wellness-focused Cowell, he’d be shocked.

Speaking to Diary of a CEO host Steven Bartlett, 64-year-old Cowell says he’s learned the error of his workaholic ways. The British multi-millionaire has taken several steps to rebalance his and renew his creativity. A crucial part of that was simply getting more sleep.

15/06/2024

Apple Inc. was sued by two female employees who claim it “systemically” pays women less than their male counterparts for similar work, and who are seeking to represent thousands of other women facing the same alleged discrimination.

They claim that Apple, of Cupertino, California, determined starting salaries before 2018 by asking employees for their compensation history and that this practice “perpetuated historic pay disparities between men and women.”

Then, when California outlawed the practice, the iPhone maker started asking for salary expectations, entrenching the disparity, the women claim.

15/06/2024

The chief financial officer of $19 billion Tyson Foods has been suspended from work hours after local police in Arkansas arrested the executive for allegedly driving while intoxicated.

According to police records, John R. Tyson was booked around 1:30 a.m. on Thursday. Tyson posted bond, and law enforcement released him nine hours later after charging him with driving while intoxicated, careless driving, and making an improper turn. The charges are the Tyson scion’s second-known scrape with the law.

Just months after he was appointed to the CFO role in 2022, Tyson was found asleep in a stranger’s bed in her Fayetteville, Ark., home. Police said the woman resident did not know Tyson. The CFO was arrested for public intoxication and criminal trespass after the incident; he later apologized to employees in an email and said he would get counseling for his drinking.

15/06/2024

A handful of bankers have been let go by Wells Fargo after the financial giant discovered the staff were “simulating keyboard activity” instead of actually working.

The more than dozen employees were all in the firm’s wealth- and investment-management team, and were “discharged after review of allegations involving simulation of keyboard activity creating impression of active work.”

The issue was raised in a filing to the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, which was seen by Bloomberg.

“Wells Fargo holds employees to the highest standards and does not tolerate unethical behavior,” a company spokeswoman told Fortune.

15/06/2024

Nobody is safe from Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s now permanent efficiency measures, not even the company’s upper echelons.

As of last year, Meta employed an army of 300 vice presidents staggered into five levels of seniority that are now the prime targets of Zuck’s efficiency cuts, Business Insider reported, citing three people with knowledge of the company. In previous years, there were half as many VPs at Meta, Business Insider noted, and Zuckerberg reportedly wants to slice the roster down to 250.

The VP massacre comes after Zuckerberg first declared 2023 the “year of efficiency” last February, which resulted in more than 20,000 layoffs that year, according to BI.

11/06/2024

“His policy has now crushed multifamily starts; we need houses.”

Starwood Capital Group’s chief executive and chairman doesn’t seem to be a fan of the Federal Reserve. The billionaire behind the real estate investment firm, Barry Sternlicht, has mocked and blamed the institution and its chair, Jerome Powell, on several occasions.

Sternlicht once referred to the Fed as “Jay Powell and his merry band of lunatics” in an interview with Fortune, claiming there would be “social unrest” because of its monetary tightening. On another occasion, he called the Fed’s interest rate hikes “self-inflicted suicide.”

In an interview with CNBC yesterday, Sternlicht didn’t change his tune, although he was less colorful.

11/06/2024

Sir Richard Branson may be well past retirement age at 73 years old, but the risk-loving entrepreneur shows no sign of slowing down.

Even still, the Virgin Group CEO appears to be getting his affairs in order to ensure his crown jewel, Virgin Atlantic, stays in the family long after he’s gone.

In an interview with The Times of London, 73-year-old Branson indicated he is one of several aging CEOs undergoing succession planning as part of the multitrillion-dollar wealth transfer set to occur over the next 30 years.

11/06/2024

Like any true shark, Mark Cuban gets that everyone in the food chain has to eat.

But he isn’t looking to swim alone. While he’s amassed a massive fortune as a billionaire, he also believes in sharing his wins with his employees.

It’s just what you should do, investor and Shark Tank star Cuban says. No man, or shark, is an island, after all.

On Tuesday, Cuban noted that each time he’s sold a company he makes sure that he’s not the only one walking away with heavy pockets. “In every business I’ve sold I’ve paid out bonuses to every employee that was there more than a year,” he wrote.

11/06/2024

Yida Gao is a Chinese immigrant who was riding high in the crypto world after landing on the Forbes 30 Under 30 list.

He had his own blockchain-focused venture firm, Shima Capital and in a short time, raised $200 million from finance heavyweights like Bill Ackman and prominent crypto firms, soon becoming one of the most active investors in crypto by participating in more than 300 deals.

Gao’s ascent was meteoric.

But he also cut crucial corners. A Fortune investigation has discovered that unbeknownst to Ackman and his other investors, Gao created a secret offshore entity and funneled assets belonging to his venture fund into the corporation set up under his own name.

11/06/2024

ChatGPT is coming to Apple’s Siri “later this year.”

Apple kicked off its Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) on Monday with perhaps its biggest keynote ever, with AI—Apple Intelligence, not artificial intelligence—being the centerpiece.

At the event, Apple announced a partnership with ChatGPT maker OpenAI—bringing the chatbot to iOS 18 for free.

Siri can tap into ChatGPT to help answer certain questions. For example, users can ask Siri to generate a recipe from a list of ingredients. The user can choose to allow Siri to share their question with ChatGPT, and it’ll provide answers without leaving the conversation with Siri.

09/06/2024

It’s all down to his growth mindset.

Since joining Microsoft in 1992, Satya Nadella has not only impressed those he’s worked for, landing him promotion after promotion until he took the helm 10 years ago—he’s also attracted the admiration of his peers while doing it.

Now, his fellow CEOs look up to him more than any other boss, including Doug McMillon of Walmart, which topped the 70th edition of the recently released Fortune 500 list. It’s not hard to see why.

Instead of resting on its laurels, Nadella has pushed Microsoft to innovate: Bold acquisitions, including LinkedIn and GitHub, paid off, as did its shift into the cloud. Now, Microsoft is futureproofing by investing big in AI.

09/06/2024

Karim Sadik-Khan is the new finance chief of Liquid Death, the company announced on Tuesday.

Founded in 2017 and now valued at $1.4 billion, the beverage brand known for its edgy aluminum cans that aren’t filled with alcohol—instead, it’s water, sparkling water, or iced tea with fruit juice—last year hit $263 million in retail-scanned sales through registers and expanded to 113,000 locations across the U.S. and U.K.

Liquid Death CEO and founder Mike Cessario, a former marketing professional, goes big when it comes to ad campaigns. For example, this summer, consumers who purchase Liquid Death have the chance to win a $400,000 two-seater, retired fighter jet.

09/06/2024

The footlong was once five dollars, or so the legend goes.

At the risk of shaking a proverbial cane and wagging a finger, a similarly sized Subway item is now often more than two or three times that cost. That’s all to say, even sandwiches evolve because of inflation.

No other than the current famed sandwich generation can attest to this shift. First coined in the ‘80s, the moniker refers to any cohort bookended by dual caregiving responsibilities. Now, Gen X has aged into the prime time to be sandwiched, as they look after both their parents and children.

09/06/2024

Staffers at Airbnb might have found themselves in an unofficial work pairing courtesy of a practice adopted by the company’s CEO, Brian Chesky.

Chesky, who cofounded the short-term accommodation site in 2008, recently said he has an “informal” habit of pairing people on his team to provide them with another layer of support.

Speaking on host Adam Grant’s ReThinking podcast, Chesky, who is worth $11.8 billion according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, said he will often mold duos out of his new hires.

“Four years ago we hired two creative directors; they worked together as a duo. One’s more of a creative director, and one’s more of a writer,” he explained.

09/06/2024

From housing to dining out to the midlife crisis, much has been made about how millennials have less money to spend compared to their baby boomer parents.

But a new survey finds that views about inter-generational financial differences are more nuanced than headlines suggest.

The survey of 950 millennials from the CFP Board shows that millennials are basically split on how their finances compare to their parents’ at the same age: 41% say it has been easier for them to achieve financial milestones, while 40% say it has been more challenging. The remaining respondents say the difficulty is about the same.

07/06/2024

“Anything that a remote worker can do, AI will do better."

It’s not just entry-level workers who have never experienced a tech boom that are fearing their looming replacement thanks to AI—now even c-suite executives in the know are predicting their demise.

Avital Balwit, the chief of staff at Anthropic, one of AI’s hottest startups, has joined the growing list of senior tech professionals to weigh into our existential crisis since Geoffrey Hinton, the “Godfather of AI,” decided he had to “blow the whistle” on the technology he helped develop.

07/06/2024

The share of companies led by female CEOs held steady at 10.4% over the past year.

On the 2024 Fortune 500, Fortune’s 70-year-old ranking of the top 500 U.S. companies by revenue, 52 businesses are run by women.

At the beginning of 2023, the share of Fortune 500 businesses led by female chief executives crossed 10% for the first time—and that stat hasn’t budged since. Meanwhile, the impact of the Fortune 500 has continued to grow; together, the companies on the list account for two-thirds of U.S. GDP with $18.8 trillion in revenues.

Companies join or depart the list of Fortune 500 businesses run by female chiefs in a few ways: by hiring, promoting, or parting ways with a female CEO or by joining or falling off the Fortune 500. The smallest company on the list this year had $7.1 billion in revenue. While not a reflection of the entire business world, the list gives us moment-in-time insight into trends at the very top of American business.

07/06/2024

Walmart CEO Doug McMillon took the reins at Walmart in 2014 with a mandate to reinvent a tradition-bound giant whose sales had grown stagnant, a retailer facing obsolescence in the face of the e-commerce revolution.

By many measures, McMillon has risen to the challenge.

Walmart has ranked No. 1 on the list of America’s biggest companies for McMillon’s entire tenure as CEO (and for 12 years in a row). Last year the company had annual revenue of $648 billion—a stunning $162 billion more than it generated the year McMillon took over.

07/06/2024

Meet the 70-Year Club.

Almost 10% of the companies on this year’s —49 in all—have made our list of America’s biggest businesses by revenue every year since its first edition, in 1955.

The 70-Year Club is nothing if not diverse. (Pfizer, maker of Vi**ra, meet Hormel, maker of Spam.) But a few themes emerge from a closer look at these corporate endurance athletes.

Among them: It’s an automotive nation, Big Food is un-disruptable, know when to merge, and know when to split up.

07/06/2024

The billionaire family behind Chanel will have pocketed $12.4 billion in payouts from the luxury brand’s earnings over the past three years, contributing to a massive increase in their personal wealth and underpinning efforts to diversify away from high fashion.

The Wertheimers’ Cayman Islands-based holding company for Chanel is to receive a $5.7 billion dividend for 2023, the largest annual payout since the maker of expensive tweed ensembles and quilted flap bags began publishing results in London six years ago.

This adds to the $1.7 billion for the previous year and $5 billion for 2021, according to filings.

05/06/2024

“When I wake up in the morning—most people get on their phone and start checking Instagram—I check Facebook Marketplace.”

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg is growing an e-commerce empire in Facebook Marketplace.

Facebook has grown to 3.07 billion monthly active users (MAUs) as of the end of 2023, a 3% year-over-year increase. Of those, up to 40%, or 1.2 billion, are active users shopping on Marketplace, according to a March report from Capital One Shopping.

Meta’s online second-hand market is already challenging the sector’s goliaths. Marketplace eclipsed Craigslist’s MAUs years ago, with Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg saying in 2018 that there were 800 million Marketplace MAUs, compared to the 55 million visitors on Craigslist in 2017.

In contrast, Amazon had 310 million monthly users in 2023, per Tech Report, about one-fourth of Marketplace’s MAUs. Marketplace is the second most popular site for second-hand purchases behind Ebay, according to a 2022 Statista report.

05/06/2024

More women are attaining the top job at companies in the S&P 500, but their numbers are still minuscule compared to their male counterparts.

Of the 341 CEOs included in the AP’s annual compensation survey, 25 are women. That’s the most women making the list since the survey began in 2011. But the numbers haven’t budged very much. The second highest tally was 21 women in 2017.

The survey, based on data analyzed for The Associated Press by Equilar, includes CEOs at S&P 500 companies who have served at least two fiscal years at their companies, which filed proxy statements between Jan. 1 and April 30, 2024.

Lisa Su, CEO and chair of the board of chipmaker Advanced Micro Devices, was the highest paid female CEO in the AP survey for the fifth year in a row in fiscal 2023, bringing in total compensation worth $30.3 million — flat with her compensation package a year earlier. Her rank rose to 21 overall from 25.

05/06/2024

Onetime meme stock favorite GameStop is soaring yet again after the man who made it famous in the Covid era posted an ownership stake in the millions.

Share prices of the retailer nearly doubled in value in Monday trading before closing 21% above its Friday price.

Keith Gill, better known as “Roaring Kitty” on social media platforms YouTube and X, also goes by the name Deep F——Value on Reddit. Late Sunday the Reddit account shared a screenshot in the r/SuperStonk forum that people are speculating could be an image of the shares and call options Gill holds in GameStop.

05/06/2024

Investors who purchased shares in Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway yesterday at a huge discount will see their trades canceled following a technical issue on the stock exchange.

On June 3, a data glitch led the global conglomerate’s stock price to fall to $185 a share, having previously closed at over $620,000. The drop meant a more than 99% discount on the Warren Buffett-led company.

This means a trader who snapped up just $925 worth of the stock at the rock-bottom price would now see their investment worth over $3 million today.

03/06/2024

Wizz Air’s business has taken off since the pandemic, with resurgent travel demand helping the London-listed budget airline turn its first annual profit in three years in the 12 months to March.

Another upside of its solid performance? If it helps Wizz Air’s stock to hit a certain threshold, CEO and cofounder Jozsef Váradi will take home a £100 million ($127 million) bonus.

However, Wizz Air shares have fallen 24% in the last year. So with the crucial summer season kicking off, Wizz Air has much to gain—as does its CEO—if things go in its favor.

03/06/2024

Fewer than 20% of Americans, across age groups, equate financial success with being a millionaire, per Bankrate’s 2024 Financial Success survey released last week.

A big reason for that might be that $1 million is hardly a windfall in today’s economic environment. Rather, financial success is more a feeling than a hard number, and the feeling workers are after is comfort.

“Living comfortably,” respondents told Bankrate, means being able to afford day-to-day expenses while still being able to save—and get rid of debt. For each individual, that number is likely to vary, which is why the million-dollar mark is virtually meaningless.

03/06/2024

It seems JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon can’t see a way ahead for the U.S. economy that doesn’t end in stagflation.

It’s a warning Dimon has issued before, previously saying he fears America is headed for a repeat of the 1970s when everything “felt great” and then quickly about-turned to a period of high unemployment and inflation paired with low demand, also known as “stagflation.”

Appearing at AllianceBernstein’s Strategic Decisions conference on Wednesday, Dimon said he simply can’t see how the past five years of massive fiscal and monetary stimulus could result in anything other than this scenario.

03/06/2024

Summer is almost here, and as the sunshine beckons, employers should get ready for a less motivated workforce.

Around 36% of U.S. workers say they are less productive during the summer, according to a survey of more than 890 U.S. working adults from HR software provider Dayforce.

Young workers ages 18 to 34 are particularly likely to slack off during the summer months, as 50% of this cohort reports less productivity during that time.

03/06/2024

“Even the MBA, one of America’s most popular master’s degrees, frequently has a low or negative payoff."

With Gen Z on track to become the most educated generation in history, those looking to stand out amid the sea of college graduates may tempted to eye a master’s degree—but be warned, it’s not the golden ticket to big paychecks and guaranteed success one might imagine.

Quite the opposite: According to new research, nearly half of master’s degree programs actually leave students financially worse off.

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