Links
Candy Crush > Safety
LinkDefault is good for his business
LinkEveryone does it.
Link42. Ossified: drunk
Linkif it’s a boy Jessie, if it’s a girl Jessie!
LinkWhy corporate personhood is silly: define irreparable injury
LinkPhone contracts are a b*tch
LinkTo put the blame for Nokia’s problems all on the shoulders of Stephen Elop would be absurd, but he came to the company from Microsoft, bet the company’s future on the Windows Phone operating system, and it was a huge disaster. Now with the one-time market leader no longer viable as an independent company it’s being bought by Microsoft and Elop will find himself earning about $25 million in bonuses as part of Nokia contractual arrangements for a change in corporate control.
That’s a hell of a contract. Oh yes, and he’s failing up. Here are the reasons why according to Nokia (which Elop still runs?):
The first was to stop Mr Elop resigning. He could have resigned because of the change of control and still received the pay-off. “The amendment was made to keep him on board,” Nokia said.
Microsoft is keen to retain Mr Elop because the US group wants him to run the mobile phone unit, and he has been talked about as a favourite to replace Steve Ballmer as Microsoft chief executive. As part of the deal, Microsoft has agreed to cover 70 per cent of Mr Elop’s pay-off, with Nokia paying the remainder.
“They didn’t have to pay it legally. But they also want to ensure he comes and properly integrates the devices and services business,” Nokia said.
The second reason was that his original contract contained a non-compete agreement that included Microsoft among the list of companies that he could not join. That clause had to be altered to allow him to go to Microsoft with the unit when the deal closes, in the first quarter of next year.
The third reason, Nokia says, is to regulate what would happen were the deal to collapse. Nokia says the contract now says he could be reinstated as chief executive but he would give up all his equity awards.
I’d rather just have the phone.
@BAGNewsNotes examines Photos of Nairobi Attack
LinkKenyan Col Cyrus Oguna: ‘Most hostages now rescued’ from Nairobi Westgate terrorist attack
Linkcheating, not competing
LinkMore dead in Kenya
LinkNuclear Bombs are a liability as well
LinkEPA Announces Carbon Limits
LinkNintendo has been around since 1889?
LinkUN Secretary General Report on Chemical Weapons in Syria
Linkall too real
LinkMany of us male techies feel we can honestly deny gender is an issue in our professional world in but then stuff like this f*ckery reported by Valleywag happens:
TechCrunch Disrupt 2013 startup conference: an app called Titstare, presented by two grinning Australian dudes, exactly as tasteless as it sounds.
The stunt—which the Sydney duo claims was just a “joke”—was done before to an audience who paid for the opportunity to watch what was essentially a shitty routine pulled from the boys’ cabin at sleepaway camp. Some in attendance actually laughed and cheered, so I suppose part of the crowd thought they got their money’s worth.
There’s more.
If you’d like to feel worse today, here’s another “demo” from the same “hackathon” “presentation,” which is basically a guy pretending to jerk off before a crowd that included a 9-year-old girl.
TechCrunch is owned by AOL. AOL owns a lot of brands including HuffPo, Moviefone and MapQuest. This conference series is not a small deal. It’s international. Somehow, in San Francisco, California in 2013 organizers for this huge conference series hosted by a premier brand of an international tech company believes that these bits were amusing and appropriate. They even publicized the bits before someone complained:
TechCrunch proceeded to tweet a link to Titstare from its official Disrupt account, but decided that was perhaps unwise, and deleted it, settling for this instead.
This is a symptom of the problem of not having gender diversity in tech.