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CEOs Become Vaccine Activists as Back-to-Office Push Grows

 

(Bloomberg) — Some chief executive officers are so eager for their employees to get vaccinated against Covid-19 that they’re granting workers time off or cash incentives to get shots.

Striking a persuasive tone on vaccination will become ever more important as executives hasten a return to the office. Employees at jeweler Tiffany & Co. in the U.S. have been instructed to work at least two days from the office from the beginning of March — whether they’re vaccinated or not.

Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon said at a conference last month that more of the firm’s bankers would have been back in the office by now if vaccine distribution had been faster in the first quarter.

Working from home is an “aberration that we are going to correct as quickly as possible,” he said.

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My Deepest Gratitude

To all of you who supported Special Olympics with the Polar Plunge, I can’t thank you enough.

Amazon is quietly building a grocery chain

 

As many businesses struggled to survive the pandemic, Amazon.com was quietly building a national grocery chain.

The first Amazon Fresh store opened to the public in Los Angeles in September. Store No. 11 opened Thursday, and Amazon is working on at least 28 more, from Philadelphia to the Sacramento suburbs. The company is also testing the “Just Walk Out” cashierless shopping technology created for its Go convenience stores at an Amazon Fresh location in Illinois.

More than a decade after it started selling groceries, Amazon has a tiny sliver of the $900 billion U.S. grocery market and has watched traditional chains finally start figuring out how to sell food online. Amazon Fresh, industry watchers say, is a way for the company to become even stickier with devoted Prime members, as well as appeal to a broad cross-section of America, from lower-income shoppers who frequent discounters like Walmart Inc. to wealthier customers looking to pick up online orders.

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New App Brings Instagram to More Than 170 Countries

 

When COVID-19 closed the Facebook Inc. offices in Tel Aviv, Michelle Lourie found herself working in a shed on the kibbutz where she lives with her family in Israel. It’s a far cry from Tel Aviv, a city techno-edgy enough to merit being called the world’s startup capital. In addition to fielding visits from her three small children in her new digs, the product manager had to contend with the bleats of goats grazing outside and an internet connection that was spotty at best.

It was the perfect setting for her latest project.

Over the past year, Lourie and her team in Tel Aviv developed Instagram Lite in collaboration with a New York–based team including Instagram engineering, product, design and research.

This new app for Android is designed to provide people living in rural and remote communities with a high-quality Instagram experience using minimal data.

The app, which is rolling out in more than 170 countries, arrived not a moment too soon. During the past year, Instagram has become a lifeline for many to connect with loved ones or find a small moment of inspiration, be it a photo of a friend’s newborn or a video of puppies discovering snow.

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Comparing Luxury Investment Around the World

 

Comparing Luxury Investment Around the World

Do you enjoy the finer things in life? For many of the world’s wealthy individuals, acquiring luxury goods such as art, fine wine, and watches is a passion.

Unlike traditional investments in financial assets, luxury goods can be difficult to value if one does not have an appreciation for their form. A rare painting, for example, does not generate cash flows, meaning its value is truly in the eye of the beholder.

To gain some insight into the market for luxury goods, this infographic takes data from Knight Frank’s 2021 Wealth Report to compare the preferences of nine global regions.

Global Tastes in Luxury Goods

To rank the most popular luxury investments in 2020, Knight Frank surveyed over 600 private bankers, wealth advisors, and family offices. The following table summarizes their findings, as well as each category’s growth according to the Knight Frank Luxury Investment Index.

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