Posted April 5, 2024 This content first appeared in the April 2024 Fintech newsletter. If you’d like more commentary and analysis about news and trends from the a16z Fintech team, you can subscribe here. Gauging Generative AI x Financial Services Angela Strange (Adapted from a16z General Partner Angela Strange’s March…
In this edition of Author Talks, McKinsey head of brand strategy Amanda Lee chats with Bonnie Wan, the head of brand strategy and a partner at Goodby Silverstein & Partners, about her new book, The Life Brief: A Playbook for No-Regrets Living (Simon Element/Simon & Schuster, January 2024). Wan discovered that…
The UK tax system is a highly complicated system – full of allowances and exemptions, some more unusual than others. When it comes to Inheritance Tax (IHT) there are thankfully a range of tools which can be used to help reduce this hefty tax. Peter Webb, our Head of Tax…
Quick Hits Florida enacted legislation that will ease employment restrictions for minors sixteen and seventeen years old. The law gives parents and school superintendents the ability to waive the limitation on minors working only thirty hours per week while school is in session. The changes take effect on July 1,…
For several decades now, the number of people moving from their home country to other destinations has been growing exponentially. The United Nations estimates that more than 280 million people are now living in a country other than their country of birth. This figure is 130 million higher than it…
Topics Column Our expert columnists offer opinion and analysis on important issues facing modern businesses and managers. More in this series subscribe-icon Subscribe Share Carolyn Geason-Beissel/MIT SMR | Getty Images The battle to get companies to take sustainability seriously is essentially over. Even in the face of the “anti-ESG” movement…
Tennessee has joined the ranks of states regulating, in various ways, the use of artificial intelligence to manipulate an individual’s likeness. On March 21, 2024, Gov. Bill Lee said “thank you very much” to the Tennessee legislature and signed into law the Ensuring Likeness, Voice, and Image Security (“ELVIS”) Act…
Quick Hits The respective paid sick leave laws of the State of Washington and the City of Seattle have recently been clarified and updated. Under Washington’s paid sick and safe leave law, only construction workers who are directly engaged in construction work by performing “service, maintenance, or construction work on…
Today we are announcing significant changes to Azure AI Search in support for customers building production ready generative AI applications. Azure AI Search has drastically increased storage capacity and vector index size at no additional cost, so customers can run retrieval augmented generation (RAG) at any scale, without having to…
The first quarter of 2024 has drawn to a close and we’re excited to unveil the findings of our latest State of Enterprise Tech Spending report, intended to gauge the budget planning and overall sentiment of large enterprise technology buyers. As in previous quarters, we polled 100 CXOs who collectively…
Q: What project are you undertaking with your academic career? I study the economics of education. My goal is to understand how education shapes big-picture outcomes like inequality, upward mobility, and economic growth. I’m looking across educational levels from early childhood through college to think about the value of education…
The future of healthcare is software-defined and AI-enabled. Around 700 FDA-cleared, AI-enabled medical devices are now on the market — more than 10x the number available in 2020. Many of the innovators behind this boom announced their latest AI-powered solutions at NVIDIA GTC, a global conference that last week attracted…
The 16th edition of the Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria (BBVA) Frontiers of Knowledge Award in Economics, Finance and Management honours Professor Dasgupta for his work in defining the field of environmental economics by incorporating and quantifying the social value of nature.The award also takes into account Professor Dasgupta's leadership of an…
Howie and Harlan are joined by Kate McEvoy, executive director of the National Association of Medicaid Directors, to discuss the programs’ underappreciated advances in holistically addressing health, housing, and food security. Reflecting on the upcoming election, Harlan notes that facts matter, whether in medicine or politics. Howie reports on the…
The discovery of rare variants in the genes BSN and APBA1 are some of the first obesity-related genes identified for which the increased risk of obesity is not observed until adulthood.The study, published in Nature Genetics, was led by researchers at the Medical Research Council (MRC) Epidemiology Unit and the…
Professor James Rowe from the Department of Clinical Neurosciences at Cambridge will co-lead a team that will test multiple existing and novel blood tests, looking at a range of types of dementia.The trials will capitalise on recent breakthroughs in potential dementia blood tests, and generate the evidence needed for them…
Quick Hits The FDIC released proposed revisions to its guidelines for reviewing bank mergers. The proposed revisions include a prohibition on banks using noncompete agreements with employees of units that are divested as part of the merger. The FDIC is seeking comments on the proposed revisions. On March 21, 2024,…
On February 24, 2022, the discussion on European security was terminated. Europe defined itself as a community of states hostile to Russia (there are exceptions like Hungary and Slovakia, but they have little influence on the EU as a whole). Economic, political and other ties between the European states and…
Businesses that prioritize diversity in their workforce significantly increase the likelihood of fostering creative and innovative thinking among their employees by 150%. Also, companies with a lot of different ethnicities and races in their management team are 35% more likely to do better than average in their industry. For a…
The recent market turmoil and ongoing challenges of an accelerated energy transition are putting pressure on all sectors of society, from governments to utilities to consumers—industrials included. Industrials are highly exposed to energy costs and the recent price volatility caused by large disruptions such as the invasion of Ukraine, among…
Mistrust continues to govern relations between Russia and the West. Two years of full-scale military confrontation have only served to confirm existing negative preconceptions about each side’s intentions. President Putin could make the initial move to break this deadlock by sending a clear message that Russia does not seek to…
An image of a verdant forest glade or a tranquil pasture. Natural scenes typically conjure up positive emotions and a sense of wellbeing for most individuals, but could they also influence them to make healthier food choices? The answer, according to our new article, just published in Nature’s new journal…
Carolyn Geason-Beissel/MIT SMR | Getty Images Ethics is often associated with the abstract realm of philosophers. But there’s nothing abstract about the risks for business leaders: Ethical missteps can expose their companies to a host of reputational, regulatory, and legal risks. In response, companies develop ethical guidelines or codes for…
By Matthew A. Sloan, A. Scott Hecker, and Adam R. Young Seyfarth Synopsis: On April 1, 2024, the Federal Register published OSHA’s final rule revising its regulations regarding whom employees can authorize to act as their representative(s) to accompany compliance officers during on-site OSHA inspections. Under Section 8(e) of the Occupational Safety and…
Today, I am excited to announce the public preview of our unified security operations platform. When we announced a limited preview in November 2023, it was one of the first security operations center platforms that brought together the full capabilities of an industry-leading cloud-native security information and event management (SIEM),…
Inflation remains front and center for consumers and businesses, which continue to reel from the double-digit rise in prices during the COVID-19 pandemic and the interest rate hikes designed to cool them. While price increases for goods have slowed, the climate remains uncertain, with inflation ticking up again as recently…
Nobody likes to think about their own death, but it may be important to consider some of the challenges your family could face when you’re gone. The “cost of dying” is on the rise and if you don’t put plans in place now, you could leave your loved ones in…
Before the end of this decade, autonomous vehicles (AVs), electric vehicles (EVs), and shared forms of mobility are poised to transform the mobility landscape. How will the auto insurance landscape evolve to adapt to this wave of disruption? This is a large question with many, many answers. At ITC Vegas…
Despite the recent buzz, customer service automation isn’t a new concept. As early as the 1980s, interactive voice responses (IVR) were first developed, using pre-recorded voices to answer basic queries, redirect calls and guide users.[1] Today, due to technological advancements and artificial intelligence (AI), the functionalities of customer service automation…
People seem to really like their iPhones. What is the harm to consumers from the behavior that prompted the EU regulation and the Department of Justice lawsuit? The iPhone is indeed a great product. I have one myself. Perhaps the easiest way to explain it is to consider how we…
By Rachel See, Dawn Solowey and Adrienne Lee Seyfarth Synopsis: In a written opinion issued on March 7, 2024, the EEOC confirmed that an employee must not only show a sincerely held religious belief, but that the employee’s religious belief is actually in conflict with the workplace training or program.…
(Image created with Midjourney, an artificial intelligence tool)Happiness, an elusive condition we all want to experience, is a popular topic. It’s a complex subject. It may or may not require everything from good health to sufficient wealth to good relationships in varying degrees for each of us. The result is…
3 April 2024By Jacopo Cimadomo and Demosthenes Ioannou Governments and central banks can shield the economy from shocks with their decisions. The ECB Blog looks at a recent high-level conference that analysed the interaction of fiscal and monetary policy and questioned some long-held beliefs. Governments and central banks reacted boldly…
On the surface, the cloud journey for many European companies is an impressive story. A stunning 95 percent of European companies in our recent survey say they’re capturing value from cloud, and more than one in three say they intend to have more than half of their workloads on cloud.…
Since time immemorial, the sea has been a contested arena for state and non-state actors, for the passage of valuable goods and the control of traffic. Traditionally, the straits have been the focus of attention.On March 23, 2021, in the midst of the COVID pandemic, the world had its first…
The initiative, led by Professor Ioanna Sitaridou (Queens' College and Faculty of Modern and Medieval Languages and Linguistics), contributes to the UN’s International Decade of Indigenous Languages (2022-32), which aims ‘to draw global attention on the critical situation of many indigenous languages and to mobilise stakeholders and resources for their preservation,…
McKinsey’s Carolyn Dewar, Scott Keller, and Vik Malhotra chat with McKinsey Global Publishing leader Raju Narisetti about the global impact of their best-selling book, CEO Excellence: The Six Mindsets That Distinguish the Best Leaders from the Rest (Scribner/Simon & Schuster, March 2022), and reflect on why the book is as…
Previous waves of technology have ushered in innovations that strengthened traditional organizational structure. Not so for generative AI and large language models. Ethan Mollick April 02, 2024 Reading Time: 11 min Topics Data, AI, & Machine Learning AI & Machine Learning Carolyn Geason-Beissel/MIT SMR | Getty Images Consider this an…
We know managing privacy is harder than ever. The increasing complexity of regulatory requirements and constantly changing regulations make day-to-day privacy management a challenge. Manual, inefficient processes and inflexible tools can make it difficult for organizations to know where data is located and how it’s being used. The Microsoft Priva…
Absenteeism is so pervasive in Latin America and Asia that 10 percent of a business’ workers might not show up on any given day.This risk can create tremendous uncertainty, especially for businesses running on low margins, says Jorge Tamayo, an assistant professor at Harvard Business School. “You can’t control absenteeism,…