Great article describing Michael Jordan as an NBA team owner and the head of a worldwide brand.
In George Orwell’s classic novel, on one level an allegory for the Soviet Union under Stalin, the worker animals spy on a meeting between the pigs and the other farmers. The book begins with the pigs leading a revolution to overthrow the tyranny of man on their farm, but over time, they slowly start to look and act like the humans they once hated.
By the end, owning the farm changes the pigs so much the other animals no longer recognize them. For Orwell, who wrote the book after narrowly escaping the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War, it was the way of all insurrections: the revolutionaries become the oppressors.
And there were few basketball players more revolutionary than Michael Jordan. He wasn’t content to be a great player; he figured he had as much right to the money his basketball ability generated for the NBA as the owners. He was an employee of the Chicago Bulls, but he was the boss of Brand Jordan.
Read more
The boxing world lost a great one tonight.
Joe Frazier, the Hall of Fame boxer, has passed away. The first man to defeat Muhammad Ali entered hospice care over the weekend after a short battle with liver cancer.
Impressive that the Nook is a $2 billion tablet business put out by a brick-and-mortar company.
Barnes & Noble announced its latest Nook e-readers today, including the Nook Tablet. For details, check out Peter Kafka’s liveblog at All Things D or extensive coverage at The Verge, including a handy tablet comparison chart.
The Nook Tablet is basically a souped up e-reader — like the new Kindle Fire, without Amazon’s video ecosystem, app store, or cloud services. Also like the Kindle Fire, it’s not really an iPad replacement. But if all you want to do is read e-books, maybe a magazine, see the web, stream Pandora, and use a limited selection of apps and video, it may be enough.
Read more
LSU still on top, rounded out by the usual suspects:
1. LSU
2. Oklahoma State
3. Alabama
4. Stanford
5. Boise State
6. Okhlahoma
7. Oregon
8. Arkansas
9. Clemson
10. Virginia Tech
The Forbes list of the world’s most powerful individuals was released and featured a handful of notable tech leaders.
5. Bill Gates, co-chair, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
9. Mark Zuckerberg, founder, Facebook.
30. Sergey Brin and Larry Page, co-founders, Google.
40. Jeff Bezos, CEO, Amazon.
42. Robin Li, CEO, Baidu.
44. Li Ka-shing, chairman, Hutchinson Wampoa.
58. Tim Cook, CEO, Apple.
60. Masayoshi Son, CEO, Softbank.
I wonder where Steve Jobs would have sat on this list if he were still here.
Terrible news for Sooners fans. It’s never good when a great player goes down.
Oklahoma Sooners all-world wide receiver Ryan Broyles was sidelined in the third quarter against the Texas A&M Aggies with some sort of knee injury. Broyles brought down a pass near the sideline and landed awkwardly, crumpling to the ground. He didn’t appear to be in extreme pain, but it was evident something was very wrong.
He was immediately helped to the sideline training table, and was observed by a horde of medical personnel. Minutes later, he was in tears as he was being led into the locker room.
Broyles is the NCAA’s all-time receptions leader, and could’ve gone pro last year but elected to try and help contribute to a championship team. He would’ve likely been a high pick.
These are the kinds of stories that make me think that the human race is absolutely incapable of having any decency.
“I asked to talk to a manager and he said it was against their policy to pay for items that left the store,” she said. “The security guard said we were being charged with shoplifting.”
Four hours later, a police officer arrived and read them their rights. A woman from the state Child Welfare Services arrived to take Zofia away.
Apparently nobody else in the store thought to maybe try and talk to someone or to even reason with whoever the authority at the time was?
I hate it when people call themselves “entrepreneurs” when what they’re really trying to do is launch a startup and then sell or go public, so the can cash in and move on. They’re unwilling to do the work it takes to build a real company, which is the hardest work in business. That’s how you really make a contribution and add to the legacy of those who went before. You build a company that will stand for something a generation or two from now.
This is the glaring difference between people who actually believe in what they are doing and those that are in this game solely for the profit.
