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'Shark Tank' star Robert Herjavec: Entrepreneurs can't have work-life balance if they want to be successful

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robert herjavec

One of the biggest movements in business today is providing employees with benefits that recognize the importance of their personal lives, like extended parental-leave policies.

But, if you're a serious entrepreneur, says "Shark Tank" investor and Herjavec Group founder Robert Herjavec, you need to set all that aside.

"People often ask me, 'Is there a balance in life when you start a business?'" Herjavec said in the latest episode of "Beyond the Tank."

"And I say, 'If you're expecting balance, don't start a business,'" he added.

In that "Beyond the Tank" segment, Herjavec discussed one of his Season 1 investments, grilling-accessory brand Grill Charms. Its founder, Leslie Haywood, was making hundreds of thousands of dollars in annual revenue, but was spending less and less time with her two young daughters.

After seven years of dedication to her business, she decided in 2013, when her kids were 8 and 10, to enter an exclusive licensing deal with Fox Run Brands. This was essentially a passing of the baton, and Haywood now gets quarterly royalty checks.

Herjavec said that he respects and admires her for her decision, because she recognized the sacrifices a founder needs to make to scale a company and, rather than diminish her effort, decided it wasn't right for her at that point in her life.

In a Business Insider interview with Herjavec last year, we discussed how all entrepreneurs who want to have a thriving business need to commit to it full time, and he clarified that the sacrifices this entailed should not be made at the expense of loved ones, but rather with their consent and understanding.

"Don't quit your job if it's going to hurt your family," he said, "but at the same time, a business is a living, breathing thing. If you don't quit your job, it's never going to grow. But only you can make that decision."

It's related to a point Herjavec made in the latest episode of "Shark Tank" Season 7, as well. Herjavec was impressed by Shaan Patel, founder of SAT tutoring company 2400 Expert, and admired his work ethic, high intelligence, and ability to drive impressive sales.

Patel would later make a deal with Mark Cuban, but Herjavec was worried that Patel had too much on his plate. Patel was not only running a company, but also pursuing an M.D. at Yale and an MBA at Stanford.

"My challenge with it is, you're kind of playing at it," Herjavec told him. "You want to be a doctor and you want to be an entrepreneur." Herjavec also noted that Patel was too quick to entertain a spur-of-the-moment licensing deal.

"Business isn't that," Herjavec continued. "You can't play at business. Because you're going to come across a guy who doesn't want to be a doctor, and he is going to kick your behind. I can't invest in a part-time entrepreneur."

SEE ALSO: Daymond John reveals what he learned from losing $750,000 on the first season of 'Shark Tank'

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NOW WATCH: 'Shark Tank' star Robert Herjavec knows what to do when everything is against you


The director of 'Star Wars: Episode IX' wants to shoot scenes in outer space

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Colin Trevorrow Joshua Blanchard Getty

During a panel talk about the ins-and-outs of filmmaking at the Sundance Film Festival, director Colin Trevorrow ("Jurassic World"), who will be directing "Star Wars: Episode IX," Trevorrow teased an idea he's working on for his "Star Wars" movie: shooting in space.

"I asked the question, 'Is it possible for us to shoot IMAX film plates in actual space for 'Star Wars,' and I haven't gotten an answer yet," said Trevorrow during the panel.

Trevorrow made the comments while on a panel that included Christopher Nolan, and cinematographer Rachel Morrison ("Fruitvale Station").

The ambitious idea by Trevorrow, who is coming off the second-highest grossing film of 2015 with "Jurassic World," would be a first for the "Star Wars" franchise, but it doesn't sound like it's the first time it's been thought about.

Nolan said during the panel that he had the same idea for one of his movies.

"Funny enough, we had that conversation with 'Interstellar,' said Nolan. "There's incredible footage from space now."

The 2008 8-minute short film "Apogee of Fear" is regarded as the first movie to shoot in space.

apollo 13With "Star Wars" movies notoriously difficult to make here on Earth, it could be interesting to see if Disney would give the okay to allow Trevorrow to do it.

For the 1995 film "Apollo 13," director Ron Howard had pieces of the lunar modules set built in a Boeing reduced-gravity aircraft so the actors could do select space sequences for about 23 seconds of weightlessness.

Trevorrow's idea is certainly next level.

"Star Wars: Episode IX" opens in 2019.

SEE ALSO: "The Force Awakens" will pass $2 billion worldwide at the box office next week

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NOW WATCH: An exercise scientist reveals how often and for how long you should work out to actually see results

Here's everything we know about the Super Bowl ads so far

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Super Bowl 50 is fast-approaching and some brands have already released teasers about the ads they will be airing during the big game on February 7.

The average cost of a 30-second slot during the Super Bowl has soared to $5 million this year — up 11% on the highest price last year's broadcaster NBC banked for its Super Bowl commercials. This year's broadcaster, CBS, has hinted that the last available ad space could even fetch as much as $6 million.

Here's everything we know so far about which brands are advertising during the Super Bowl and what they've got planned.

We've organized the brands in alphabetical order for ease of navigation. We'll keep updating this post right up until February 7, when you can follow our live coverage.

 

Acura

The automaker's ad will air during the first quarter and will serve to launch the new $156,000 NSX supercar — the most expensive car ever advertised in a Super bowl ad, according to I4U News

The ad is set to Van Halen's hit "Runnin' With the Devil." Here's the spot:

Acura last featured in the Super Bowl in 2012, with a 60-second spot starring Jerry Seinfeld. Here's that ad:

Youtube Embed:
http://www.youtube.com/embed/1LofPu0ycbo
Width: 560px
Height: 315px



Amazon

Amazon is making its Super Bowl ad debut this year, with a spot starring actor Alec Baldwin and former Miami Dolphins quarterback Dan Marino.

A teaser video released on January 27 — created by Leo Burnett, the agency behind the campaign — showed the pair using the Amazon Echo voice-activated wireless speaker to help them organize a Super Bowl party.



Apartments.com

Jeff Goldblum is continuing his job as brand ambassador for Apartments.com, reprising his role from its previous ads as eccentric Silicon Valley exec "Brad Bellflower," The WSJ reported. Lil Wayne also stars.

The 60-second spot, entitled "MovinOnUp," has been created by ad agency RPA. It will air in the second commercial break of the game.

Here's a teaser video Apartments.com released ahead of the game.



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Here's what it's like to experience the star-studded Sundance Film Festival up close

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Every winter, the movie world travels to the small ski town of Park City, Utah, to indulge in top-flight independent films and corporate-sponsored parties for 10 days during the Sundance Film Festival, which winds down this weekend.

Though for some the fest is filled with having fun on the slopes or hobnobbing with stars, for journalists like me, the experience is a full-out endurance test with little eating or sleeping.

Here's a glimpse at my time this year at America's most famous film festival.

SEE ALSO: We watched the new ESPN documentary on O.J. Simpson and there are some explosive revelations

Though most stay in the countless condos dotting Park City, there are some hotels, and I put up camp at the Best Western Plus Landmark Inn & Pancake House (no, I didn't have time for the pancakes).



It wasn't close to the theaters that show the films or the parties on Park City's downtown Main St., but every morning the hotel provided a shuttle to all the action.



And my hotel also provided a Continental breakfast starting at 6 a.m. every day, so I was able to jam a couple pieces of fruit into my bag for each day ahead.



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'Making a Murderer' defense attorney says blood vial evidence could still prove Steven Avery was framed

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Since Netflix's "Making a Murderer" aired in December, a lot of information that wasn't included in the series has come to light.

On Saturday, Investigation Discovery special "Steven Avery: Guilty or Innocent" went over the case once again with new interviews with the attorneys, experts, and reporters who covered the trial of Avery, who is currently serving a life sentence for the 2005 murder of photographer Teresa Halbach.

Avery's defense centered on the theory that the Manitowoc County, Wisconsin man was being framed for the murder by local police. Previously, Avery had been exonerated for the assault of a female jogger after already serving 18 years of his sentence. At the time of the investigation into Halbach's murder, he had an ongoing $36 million civil suit against the county that also included the policemen involved in his conviction.

"What I feel like, they're going to railroad me again," Avery told a reporter during the investigation. "They set me up the first time. I had to do 18 years to prove my innocence. Now, they want to redo it and see if they can get me, plant evidence so I don't get back out."

One of the defense's biggest findings to support its theory was a vial of Steven Avery's blood from the previous crime's investigation. To the defense team, it showed evidence of tampering – a small hole was found in the lid – and could have been used to plant Avery's blood in Halbach's car.

Steven avery blood vial making a murderer netflixBut since the documentary aired, we've found out that the prosecutors had a witness, a nurse who would say that she made that hole in the lid and that it was the typical way to fill a test tube. That would seem to take away any proof of framing the evidence provided.

But on Saturday's ID special, Avery's defense attorney Jerry Buting explained why the blood vial had other evidence of tampering.

"This evidence tape had been cut, by who? When?" Buting said of the tape on the box that held the vial.

making a murderer steven avery blood vial ID

He also pointed out, "If you look carefully, there's blood in between the stopper and the glass, which you can only get if the stopper was taken out. That looked suspicious."

Dassey is currently appealing his conviction. On Friday, NBC's "Dateline" aired its own special about the case. On it, Avery's new attorney, Kathleen Zellner, said that new forensic testing could lead to another exoneration for her client.

SEE ALSO: Steven Avery's new lawyer says advances in forensic testing could exonerate him — again

SEE ALSO: Steven Avery and Brendan Dassey supporters lead protest in 'Making a Murderer' Wisconsin town

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NOW WATCH: The lawyer from 'Making A Murderer' describes what's wrong with America's criminal justice system

How one author unlocked the secrets of one of Africa's most oppressive dictatorships

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Kagame

The 1994 Rwandan genocide, in which a tottering government spurred members of the Hutu ethnic group to slaughter as many as 800,000 of their Tutsi neighbors, has been the subject of numerous books, dramatic films, and documentaries aimed at a general audience.

The atrocity's messy aftermath hasn't inspired quite the same interest.

Rwanda's post-genocide government helped touch off multiple region-wide conflicts in the neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo, as Paul Kagame, the commander of the eventually victorious Tutsi forces in 1994, molded Rwanda into one of the most thoroughgoing dictatorships in Africa.

Rwanda's post-genocide trajectory, and Kagame's construction of a seemingly stable, prosperous and internationally laudedauthoritarian state, is one of the most fascinating and morally vexing foreign-policy stories of the past two decades. But it's largely remained inaccessible to nonspecialists — which is why "Bad News: Last Journalists in a Dictatorship," author Anjan Sundaram's recently published book recounting his time in Rwanda, is so important.

Screen Shot 2016 01 29 at 5.47.47 PMSundaram's first-person account of his experience working as an instructor in a journalism-training program in Kigali, Rwanda's capital, is one of the first explorations of the post-genocide Rwandan dictatorship aimed at a general audience.

From 2009 to 2013, Sundaram watched as his students were swept up in Kagame's crackdown on the independent media — a terrifying decompression of the political and intellectual space that did not trigger any noticeable reduction in western support for Kagame's government.

Sundaram's book will be of interest even to readers who know nothing about Rwandan history, or about Kagame's leading role in the labyrinthine conflicts that have frequently convulsed Africa's Great Lakes region over the past 20 years. The book's details and narrative are solely focused on Rwanda, but its major themes have a tragically universal character.

"Bad News" is a jarringly intimate record of how an oppressive government's distortions of the truth play out on the level of an individual mind. It's a book about the denial of freedom of conscience — about how a dictatorship's wholesale reconstruction of reality corrodes and then co-opts the psyche, molding citizens into timid reflections of their doubts and fears.

As Sundaram told Business Insider, Rwanda under Kagame "was a world in which [people] could trust almost no one, where ... they would disown friends, disown family, isolate themselves" based on even the vaguest perception of danger from an omnipresent government. "And the power of the system was that people did these things to themselves."

Sundaram hopes that his book "will make it more uncomfortable" for foreign governments "to lie about what they know and force them to speak more openly about the cost at which their support to Rwanda’s government comes."

His book ends with an appendix listing scores of journalists who have been harassed, persecuted, or killed by Kagame's regime. Above all, he hopes his book will preserve at least some of their stories, which are little known both inside and outside the country.

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

Screen Shot 2016 01 29 at 5.50.53 PM

BUSINESS INSIDER: Early on in the book you argue that Rwanda’s vaunted development statistics [see here] are actually badly distorted, noting that they come from the government or are based on surveys of an intimidated citizenry. Do you think the world’s entire view of the development situation in Rwanda is totally skewed by the problems you identify?

ANJAN SUNDARAM: I think the numbers are skewed. I wouldn’t trust any government in a country in which there’s no free press ...

In Rwanda there is no free press, so the government has free reign to say whatever they want and whatever they say becomes the truth. And the problem is that the world has blindly, unquestioningly accepted their word, so that when the Rwandan government says economic growth is at 8% the world believes it and publishes it and without saying “according to the government” …

Almost all of the research projects documenting the economy in Rwanda have proceeded with the explicit approval of the government and have been shaped by the government in important ways. Researchers are talking to government-sanctioned subjects. They’re getting government permission to access the countryside, which is highly controlled.

I also think a lot of the world’s view on Rwanda is shaped on people’s impressions coming in. You arrive in Rwanda and you’ve been told the story of the genocide but you see the roads, the streetlights, the skyscrapers. I think the emotional response is so powerful that people tend to slack off on the actual evidence and the facts.

People want to believe Rwanda’s story, of a successful country rising from the ashes of genocide. And so it’s easy forget that most of the information that we have about the country and most of the survey data comes from one source: the Rwandan government. And it’s a highly repressive government.

Rwanda rallyBI: One theme of the book is the idea that in such an oppressive country you have to figure out what’s going on based on what you’re not seeing, while figuring out how to interpret what you are seeing — everything’s a code in a way, pointing to stories the government doesn’t want told. When did you get to the point where you could figure out the significance of what you were observing and experiencing?

AS: When I arrived in Rwanda in 2009 I was largely oblivious to the extent of repression and control. I knew about Kagame’s forces’ war crimes in Congo but I had read much of the same positive news that everyone reads about Rwanda. I read nothing almost that told me about the stories of the many journalists and politicians and academics and military figures who had fled the country or been killed because they had opposed the president. These stories are just suppressed. These people are forgotten.

One of the purposes of writing this book was to put on record some of what these journalists stood up for. They saw the country heading in a direction, and they stood up to what they saw was problematic. And they suffered for it. They’re unspoken of in Rwanda today except in extremely derogatory terms.

I wanted to put on record what they stood for, what they saw. They saw clearly, they saw early and they fought for it — and they suffered.

Rwanda congoWhen I began to teach these classes among the first things the students said to me was tell us how your countries won their freedom. Your countries were not always free. How did you win your freedom?

That began this journey of trying to understand my students’ experiences …

I guess the culmination of that process was when Gibson, one of my students … took me outside the house where I was staying in Kigali and he showed me the road across the hill.

And this road was one of Rwanda’s cleanest, best roads, one of the roads that every foreigner and donor would point to as a sign of progress: It was well-paved, the streetlights were all working, they were spaced closer even than in Dubai, which is a resource-rich country and Rwanda is not resource-rich. It gave an impression of a country that was wealthy, calm, orderly, beautiful, and growing.

Gibson showed me that people didn’t use that road. The road was completely empty. People were walking along a different local road, which was unlit and unpaved, and apparently people viewed the well-paved road and well-lit road with fear: They saw it as a place where the government could keep watch on them, and they avoided it.

That raises a question about development. What we see in Rwanda and how the people there see it can be completely the opposite. We see a memorial for the genocide and think it’s commemorating the genocide and ensuring it doesn’t happen again. But they see it as a place where trauma is spread within the country by the government as a means of control.

We see a well-paved road that people can use. They see it as a method for government surveillance and they avoid the road …

My students took me into a country that is completely divorced from what a foreigner or a visitor would experience. And the more I explored that world the more terrifying it seemed.

It was a world in which they could trust almost no one, where people performed a kind of theater in order to please the government. They would disown friends, disown family, isolate themselves. And the power of the system was that people did these things to themselves.

KigaliBI: Throughout the book you seem to detect a continuation of the genocide-era mindset in the country, and inevitably your book appears to suggest that Rwanda actually isn’t stable, and that a catastrophic historical pattern is reproducing itself in a way. Is Rwanda actually a powder keg, and will its current stability one day appear fictive?

AS: … There’s a very granular level of government control in Rwanda. If someone comes and stays at your house your neighbors will inform the local chief who lives just two streets down, and that chief will have a direct connection to a line of authority that reaches all the way to the center in Kigali.

This structure was the reason why the genocide began so quickly and proceeded so efficiently in 1994 after the government gave the order to kill.

I don’t think that Kagame has transformed the country from what it was during the genocide. In fact the situation today is extremely worrying. There’s only the government’s voice. People who criticize the government are killed, imprisoned, tortured, force to flee the country fearing for their lives …

taste of successWhen no one confirms what you’re saying you can begin to question what you saw and felt. This is the power of dictatorial system. People question themselves. And truth becomes elusive in your own mind, things that you know to be facts and felt in your skin can come to seem like figments of your imagination. And that’s an experience that I wanted to communicate in the book.

Much of the book is not only to criticize the government but also communicate some of what it feels like to live in a dictatorship and how disorienting and jarring and transformative it can be.

BI: With Kagame recently amending the constitution to be able to stay in power until 2034 [see here], where do you see Rwanda going in the next 20-odd years with no free press and the government as entrenched as it is.

AS: It’s looking very unlikely that power will transfer from Kagame without violence. That’s also the academic consensus. There are competent, intelligent, experienced Rwandan politicians. Unfortunately Kagame has alienated all of them or killed them … he’s directly responsible for building a system in which he holds total power …

And historically — Rwandan included — when countries have leaders whose power is absolute, transitions of power are accompanied by violence.

Kagame stadiumBI: Yours is one of the first books for a general readership about the dictatorship in Rwanda. What ideally would you like the impact of this book to be, given the ground that it breaks for a general audience?

AS: I wrote this book from a place of affection for my students. It would have been very difficult to write this book without that affection. It’s a very hard place, and a hard topic to write about. The propaganda is so powerful that it’s difficult even to think outside it.

I was writing drafts of this book while my journalists were being harassed. I saw students’ photos in the newspapers with their heads shaved and looking really weak and sad. In those moments I would sit down and write, and I would wake up the next morning and often find that what I had written was less interesting because it was reacting to the repression and I was trying to undo or challenge the Rwandan government’s narrative. And that’s not what I want to do in this book.

What I want to do is tell the stories. I arrived in Rwanda in 2009 to teach a new corps of journalists. None of them are practicing today. One of my students was shot dead on the day he criticized the government. Two women were sent to prison, at the time for 17 years, for insulting Kagame. Two others fled to Europe fearing for their lives. Others joined the president’s propaganda team or simply dropped out of journalism. One of them went mad.

My motivation was to tell the stories of these brave Rwandan journalists who saw where their country was heading, tried to challenge it, tried to do their jobs in a peaceful and largely constructive way and were squashed, crushed by Kagame in his drive for power …

Kigali minibusesBI: Do you suspect that you’re now barred from entering Rwanda?

AS: I expect people I knew in Rwanda to make up things about my private life, about the private lives of people near and dear to me. I expect the government to produce false documents implicating friends or people that I know. I expect them to just go after me; they might try to find out whom I was associating with, or figure out who my sources are, and I’m pretty sure that those people will feel a need to distance themselves from me. Now, with the release of my book, it’s a problem for people inside Rwanda to say they even knew me or were my friend.

BI: Even not being in Rwanda the book handcuffs you in a way — you don’t want there to be consequences for the people you interacted with when you were living there.

AS: Exactly. I think the physical security of people has to come before any other consideration. I cannot even say that this person was my friend. It would be a problem for them …

This is something I was very aware of when I was writing the book. I knew that in writing this book I would be breaking all my ties with Rwanda.

Rwanda is the place in which I have lived for the longest since I was 10 years old. It’s the closest thing to home that I’ve known in my adult life in some ways, as far as an independent home, a home I made myself.

It hasn’t been an easy decision to know that in writing this book I would be forsaking that — that I won’t be able to go back, that the friends I’ve made will have to be forsaken, and that they might forsake me.

Anyone who criticizes the government of Rwanda has to confront these very serious personal questions, and many people within Rwanda understandably choose not to confront them because the consequence would be so great.

I’m a foreigner. I have a degree of freedom; I’m not totally tied to Rwanda. So I felt I had lived through some of the worst repression in Rwanda in recent times and that there was an obligation to write about it and come to terms with the fact that I’m going to lose friends and am going to continue to lose friends and friends are going to accuse me of things and smear me.

Kagame soldierBI: And the idea is that it will have been worth it to get the story out.

AS: Absolutely. As a journalist I feel our job is to hold power accountable. And the Rwandan government has abused its power and almost no one has held it accountable. They praise Kagame, they praise the economy, but the press, both local and foreign, has not held Kagame accountable for his abuses of power.

SEE ALSO: One of Africa's most promising economies is facing a fundamental problem

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NOW WATCH: Dramatic video shows desperate migrants being rescued in the Mediterranean

The 50 richest people on earth

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The wealthiest 50 people in the world control a staggering portion of the world economy: $1.46 trillion — more than the annual GDP of Australia, Spain, or Mexico.

That's according to new data provided to Business Insider by Wealth-X, which conducts research on the super-wealthy. Wealth-X maintains a database of dossiers on more than 110,000 ultra-high-net-worth people, using a proprietary valuation model that takes into account each person's assets, then adjusts estimated net worth to account for currency-exchange rates, local taxes, savings rates, investment performance, and other factors.

Its latest ranking of the world's billionaires found that 29 of the top 50 hail from the US and nearly a quarter made their fortunes in tech. To crack this list, you'd need to have a net worth of at least $14.3 billion. And for the most part these people weren't born with a silver spoon. More than two-thirds are completely self-made, having built some of the most powerful companies, including Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway, Google, Nike, and Oracle.

From tech moguls and retail giants to heirs and heiresses, here are the billionaires with the deepest pockets around the globe.

SEE ALSO: The 20 most generous people in the world

DON'T MISS: The wealthiest people in the world under 35

49. TIE: Aliko Dangote

Net worth:$14.3 billion

Age: 58

Country: Nigeria

Industry: Diversified investments

Source of wealth: Self-made; Dangote Group

At 20, Nigerian businessman Aliko Dangote borrowed money from his uncle to start a business that dealt in commodities trading, cement, and building materials. He quickly expanded to import cars during the country's economic boom. Four years later, in 1981, he formed Dangote Group, an international conglomerate that now holds diversified interests that include food and beverages, plastics manufacturing, real estate, logistics, telecommunications, steel, oil, and gas. At $14.3 billion, Dangote's fortune is the largest in Africa and equal to 2.5% of Nigeria's GDP.

The majority of Dangote's wealth stems from his stake in Dangote Cement, which is publicly traded on the Nigerian Stock Exchange. He owns cement plants in Zambia, Senegal, Tanzania, and South Africa, and in 2011 invested $4 billion to build a facility on the Ivory Coast. Dangote bought back a majority stake in Dangote Flour Mills — which had grown unprofitable after he sold a large stake to South African food company Tiger Brands three years ago for $190 million — in December for just $1. He is also chairman of The Dangote Foundation, which focuses on education and health initiatives, including a $12,000-per-day feeding program.



49. TIE: James Simons

Net worth:$14.3 billion

Age: 77

Country: US

Industry: Hedge funds

Source of wealth: Self-made; Renaissance Technologies

Before revolutionizing the hedge fund industry with his mathematics-based approach, "Quant King" James Simons worked as a code breaker for the US Department of Defense during the Vietnam War, but was fired after criticizing the war in the press. He chaired the math department at Stony Brook University for a decade until leaving in 1978 to start a quantitative-trading firm. That firm, now called Renaissance Technologies, has more than $65 billion in assets under management among its many funds.

Simons has always dreamed big. About 10 years ago, he announced that he was starting a fund that he claimed would be able to handle $100 billion, about 10% of all assets managed by hedge funds at the time. That fund, Renaissance Institutional Equities Fund, never quite reached his aspirations — it currently handles about $10.5 billion— but his flagship Medallion fund is among the best-performing ever: It has generated a nearly 80% annualized return before fees since its inception in 1988.

In October, Renaissance shut down a $1 billion fund — one of its smaller ones — "due to a lack of investor interest." The firm's other funds, however, have been up and climbing. Simons retired in 2009, but remains chairman of the company.



47. TIE: Laurene Powell Jobs

Net worth:$14.4 billion

Age: 52

Country: US

Industry: Media

Source of wealth: Inheritance; Disney

The widow of Apple cofounder Steve Jobs, Laurene Powell Jobs inherited his wealth and assets, which included 5.5 million shares of Apple stock and a 7.3% stake in The Walt Disney Co., upon his death. Jobs' stake in Disney — which has nearly tripled in value since her husband's death in 2011 and comprises more than $12 billion of her net worth — makes her the company's largest individual shareholder.

Though she's best recognized through her iconic husband, Jobs has had a career of her own. She worked on Wall Street for Merrill Lynch and Goldman Sachs before earning her MBA at Stanford in 1991, after which she married her late husband and started organic-foods company Terravera. But she's been primarily preoccupied with philanthropic ventures, with a particular focus on education. In 1997, she founded College Track, an after-school program that helps low-income students prepare for and enroll in college, and in September she committed $50 million to a new project called XQ: The Super School Project, which aims to revamp the high-school curriculum and experience.

Last October, Jobs spoke out against "Steve Jobs," Aaron Sorkin's movie about her late husband that portrays him in a harsh light, calling it "fiction." Jobs had been against the project from the get-go, reportedly calling Leonardo DiCaprio and Christian Bale to ask them to decline roles in the film.



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'Kung Fu Panda 3' dominates the weekend box office

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It looks like the "Kung Fu Panda" franchise is still a viable one for 20th Century Fox. The third installment that once more includes the voices of Jack Black, Angelina Jolie, Dustin Hoffman, among others, had a dominant showing at the weekend box office with the animated feature taking the number one spot with an estimated $41 million, according to Exhibitor Relations.

The two previous "Panda" movies opened in the early summer, with their opening weekend earnings reported at $60.2 million and $47.6 million, respectively. Factor in "Panda 3" opening in January instead of the more kid accessible summer months, the $41 million opening is nothing to scoff at.

Coming in second place is Leonardo DiCaprio's Oscar frontrunner, "The Revenant," taking in an estimated $12.4 million. The film now has a total domestic gross of $139 million, a big thanks to that being the Oscar hype around it.

the force awakens box officeIn a disappointing third place is the disaster-at-sea tale "The Finest Hours," which only took in around $10 million, though it was released in over 3,000 theaters. Disney has been on an incredible run with the Marvel releases and "The Force Awakens," this proves the studio isn't bulletproof of bombs.

At least "Hours" can say it did better than the Marlon Wayans spoof "Fifty Shades of Black," which only took in around $6 million on 2,075 screens.

Speaking of "The Force Awakens," the film came in fourth place this weekend with an estimated $10.8 million. If all goes according to plan, the film will hit the $2 billion mark at the worldwide box office this week, making it only the third film all-time to accomplish that feat.

SEE ALSO: What happens behind the scenes of a hit NBC show as it airs live

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'We're shooting bullets, but they're using machine guns!' Netflix and Amazon outspent everyone at Sundance — here are the films they dropped millions on

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The Fundamentals of Caring

The 2016 Sundance Film Festival will go down as the year the streaming giants took over.

Even before the festival began, Netflix and Amazon were aggressive with pre-buys, but then when everyone touched down in Park City, Utah, they kicked it up a notch.

Though the traditional indie distributors tried to put up a good fight — like Fox Searchlight, which broke a Sundance record with a $17.5 million deal to acquire one of the hit films from this year's fest, "Birth of a Nation" — it's more than evident that Netflix's and Amazon's checkbooks were much larger than anyone else's.

As one source at a theatrical distributor told Business Insider during the fest, "We are shooting bullets, but Netflix and Amazon are using machine guns!"

Here's a breakdown of all the movies you'll be seeing on Netflix and Amazon in the coming year:

SEE ALSO: Here's what it's like to experience the star-studded Sundance Film Festival up close

"Tallulah" — Netflix ($5 million buy)

This mother-daughter drama starring Ellen Page and Allison Janney was one of the titles nabbed by Netflix before the festival began. Theatrical rights for the movie are still in play, as Netflix only took worldwide streaming rights.

Source



"Complete Unknown" — Amazon ($2 million buy)

Amazon also got in on the fun before the festival began and bought this film, which stars Rachel Weisz and Michael Shannon as two strangers who meet at a dinner party. Amazon is planning a fall release and looking for a theatrical partner.

Source



"The Fundamentals of Caring" — Netflix ($7 million buy)

Netflix wasn't done with the early buys. It also grabbed this drama starring Paul Rudd and Selena Gomez.

Source



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Dozens of teenagers told us what's cool in 2016 — these are their favorite (and least favorite) apps

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teens texting

Last week, we decided to put together a state of the union on the American teenager.

To learn what American teenagers in 2016 really like, and what they don't, we polled about 60 of them from across the US. We spoke with teens ages 13 to 19, in middle school, high school, and college.

We asked them about their digital lives and habits, pop culture, and politics. Their answers offer a glimpse into what it's like being a teenager in 2016.

Here's a glimpse into the apps they use and the games they play.

SEE ALSO: 60 teenagers reveal what they think is cool — and what isn't — in 2016

Teens are shy to talk about how much time they spend on their phones, but it's a lot.

We got lots of "too many" and "I'm embarrassed to say" responses, but the numbers we were able to get suggested teens spend about six hours a day on their phones. (This is both in and out of school.)



What are teens' favorite apps? Here are a few of the most popular answers:



The most popular by a landslide: Snapchat.

It's no surprise that teenagers love Snapchat. Here's what they had to say about it:

  • "It's how I communicate with most of my friends and it's fun." — a 15-year-old
  • "Snapchat because it's pretty much just texting, but with pictures of my beautiful face " — a 16-year-old
  • "Snapchat, because it is fun to send your friends what you're doing, and where you are in a fast and easy way. I also like being able to make stories, for all of my friends to see, and I also enjoy seeing stories of my friends on it and see what they're up to." — a 17-year-old


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Chelsea Handler stands by her comments on her new Netflix doc series regarding the TSA profiling Muslims

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chelsea handler does premiere netflix

Chelsea Handler says she was being honest when she made comments supporting the profiling of Muslim travellers by the TSA.

On "Chelsea Does Racism," one of four documentaries from the comedian released by Netflix on Saturday, Handler says she supports the searching of Muslims by TSA employees.

"This is not going to be a popular thing to say, but honestly, if Muslims are primarily the people that are blowing up planes, then I would like [the TSA] to be searching Muslims before I get on a plane," she says during a dinner discussion shot for the series with comedian Margaret Cho, "Madtv" alum Michael McDonald, actor Aasif Mandvi, and actress Stacy Highsmith.

chelsea handler does racism netflix muslims comment

When asked by Refinery29 if she was nervous about the comments now, especially in light of controversial comments Donald Trump has made about Muslim immigrants, she stood by her statement.

“No, I think people know what they’re getting when they’re watching me," the 40-year-old comic said. "And it is an honest conversation. It’s what you would talk about with your friends when you’re not being filmed. To me, that element is really integral to documentaries. Yeah, I have these feelings. They’re not necessarily right or wrong, but I have them, so I want to talk about them and say them out loud.”

chelsea handler does racism al sharpton"Chelsea Does Racism" features Handler exploring views on race, including participating in a roundtable discussion with experts from the NAACP, the Anti-Defamation League, and other civil rights organizations; a sit-down conversation with Rev. Al Sharpton; a trip to a South Carolina plantation; and an eye-opening journey to Israel where she has an intimate conversation with former president, Shimon Peres.

For those who would ask the comedian to apologize for her comments, it probably wouldn't work. Handler takes her lack of political correctness seriously.

"I would never ever apologize publicly," she tells her dinner guests on the episode, referring to getting complaints about jokes she has done about different races.

Though known for her blunt, honest style, Handler said she never says anything just for shock value.

"No, I would never do that," she told Refinery29. "I can’t control anything that comes out of my mouth, believe me. It’s not that strategic."

The series consists of four one-hour documentaries in which Handler explores different aspects of modern life. The other three episodes are "Chelsea Does Marriage,""Chelsea Does Drugs," and "Chelsea Does Silicon Valley."

Watch the trailer for "Chelsea Does Racism" below (Warning: strong language):

SEE ALSO: Chelsea Handler and Willie Nelson test his weed line in Netflix's 'Chelsea Does Drugs' doc trailer

SEE ALSO: Chelsea Handler is puzzled by Silicon Valley and streaming in new Netflix doc series trailer

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NOW WATCH: All the new Netflix shows you’ll be binge-watching this year

The best movies and TV shows coming to Amazon Prime, iTunes, Hulu, and more in February

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112263 james franco hulu image

The big boys of the streaming world have a couple of original titles coming in February.

For Amazon, it’s the streaming release of the Spike Lee movie it produced, “Chi-Raq,” which has been playing in theaters since early December. And over at Hulu, it’s the premiere of the adaptation of the Stephen King novel “11.22.63,” starring James Franco.

And there are also a whole lot of classics coming to streaming, like “Lost in Translation,” “Zodiac,” and “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.”

All the new movie and TV titles are below. We’ve highlighted in bold some titles we think are worth watching.

SEE ALSO: 60 teenagers reveal what is cool — and what isn't — in 2016

iTunes

Available February 2

“Spotlight”
“Steve Jobs”
“Bridge of Spies”

Available February 9

“The Night Before”
“Secret In Their Eyes’
“99 Homes”

Available February 16

“Room”
“The Danish Girl”
“Trumbo”
“Miss You Already’

Available February 23

“The Big Short”
“The Good Dinosaur”
“In the Heart of the Sea”
“Victor Frankenstein”



Amazon Prime

Available February 1

“A Better Life”
“Amy”
“Batman”
“Broad City” (Season 2)
“Deliver Us On Evil”
“How To Steal A Million”
“Kings of Summer”
“Lost In Translation”
“Men In Black”
“Nightwatch”
“The Fifth Element”
“The Fury”
“The Karate Kid”
“The Truth About Emanuel”
“Twelve O'Clock High”

Available February 2

“Adaline”
“Myanmar: Bridges to Change”
“Poldark” (Season 1)
“Steve Jobs”
“Truth”

Available February 3

“American Crime Story: The People vs. OJ Simpson”

Available February 4

“Talladega Nights: The Ballad Of Ricky Bobby”
 
Available February 5

“Chi-Raq” (AMAZON ORIGINAL)
“Ouija Exorcism”

Available February 9

“The Leftovers” (Season 2)
“Grandma” 

Available February 10

“Shameless” (Season 6)

Available February 11

“Girls” (Season 2)

Available February 15

“The Americans” (Season 3)
“The Newsroom” (Season 3)
“Solomon Kane”

Available February 15

“Togetherness” (Season 1)
“The Walking Dead” (Season 6 - second half) 

Available February 16

“Better Call Saul (Season 2)
“The New Yorker Presents” (Season 1)

Available February 17

“Billions” (Season 1)
“Rizzoli & Isles” (Season 7)

Available February 23

“Black Sails” (Season 3)

Available February 21

“Love & Friendship”

Available February 24

“Digging for Fire”
 
Available February 29

“Inequality for All”



Hulu

Available February 1

“Astro Boy”
“Butterfly Effect 3: Revelations”
“Dave Chappelle's Block Party”
“From Within”
“The Hand That Rocks The Cradle”
“Hannibal”
“Braveheart”
“The Madness of King George”
“Blood Simple”
“Staying Alive”
“The Firm”
“The General's Daughter”
“King Kong” (2005)
“Naked Gun 33 1/3: The Final Insult”
“Naked Gun From The Files Of Police Squad”
“An Office and a Gentleman”
“Panic”
“School Ties” 
“She's Having a Baby”
‘Species”
“Species II”
“Species III”
“Summer of Sam”
“Summer Rental”
“Summer School”
“The Talented Mr. Ripley”
“Trainspotting”
“Universal Soldier”
“Zodiac”

Available February 2

“Castle” (New Episodes)
“Inside the NFL: 2015 Super Bowl Preview: Special”

Available February 3

“UnREAL” (Season 1)
“The Muppets” (New Episodes)
“Fresh Off the Boat” (New Episodes)

Available February 4

“Workaholics” (Season 6 Premiere)
“Idiotsitter” (Season 1)
 
Available February 5

“Michael Jackson's Journey From Motown to Off the Wall”

Available February 6

“Mortdecai”
 
Available February 11

“The Thin Blue Line”

Available February 12

“Grey’s Anatomy” (New Episodes)
“Scandal” (New Episodes)
“How To Get Away With Murder” (New Episodes)

Available February 14

“The Imitation Game”

Available February 15

“11.22.63” (HULU ORIGINAL)
“The Aviator”

Available February 17

“A Murder in the Park” 

Available February 25

“Blue Is The Warmest Color”
 
Available February 26

“Project Runway” (Season 13)
“Duck Dynasty” (Season 5)
“Pawn Stars” (Season 7 & 8)
                
Available February 29

“Jerry Maguire” 
“The Lifeguard”
“Gotham” (New Episodes)



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A 21-year-old who looks exactly like Taylor Swift shut down the people who body-shamed her

Vanessa Hudgens crushed it as Rizzo in Fox's 'Grease: Live' just hours after her dad died, and Twitter went nuts

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vanessa hudgens

"Grease: Live" is already becoming a sensation, at least based on the Internet reaction.

And a lot of it has to do with star Vanessa Hudgens.

The actress performed Sunday night just hours after announcing the death of her father from stage-four cancer. She posted about his passing away last night on Twitter. Rather than canceling her performance, she continued and dedicated the show to him.

 

 The Fox live show is a recreation of the popular musical that was made into the 1978 film starring John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John. Hudgens plays Rizzo in a cast that includes Julianne Hough, Aaron Tveit, Carly Rae Jepsen, and Joe Jonas.

Many viewers thought Hudgens knocked her version of the difficult song "There Are Worse Things (I Could Do)" out of the park, especially under the extremely difficult circumstances.

 

 

 

Here's her performance:

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3 early predictions for who's going to win on Oscar night

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Michael Keaton Kevork Djansezian Getty

After months of pundits talking about what will happen Oscar night, this period in the weeks before the show is when things finally start to become clear.

The SAG Awards took place over the weekend, and historically many of the winners who lift statues there will do the same on February 28. A big reason for that? The members of SAG (Screen Actors Guild) make up the largest branch that casts ballots for the Academy Awards, with over 1,100 members.

Here are three wins from Saturday's ceremony that we believe shape who will win Oscar night:

SEE ALSO: Don Cheadle: Here's why the Oscars are 'silly'

Leonardo DiCaprio will win his first Oscar.

This one you can put down in permanent ink on your Oscar-pool ballot. Winning the award for outstanding performance by a male actor in a leading role at the SAG Awards pretty much locks DiCaprio for the best actor Oscar. This will be his first win, though he's been nominated three other times in the best actor category and once for supporting actor.



Things are looking good for Sylvester Stallone.

Thirty-nine years after being nominated in the best actor category for "Rocky," prospects have improved for Stallone to take the Oscar for best supporting actor in "Creed," in which he reprises the role of Rocky Balboa. His major competition, Mark Rylance in "Bridge of Spies" and Christian Bale in "The Big Short," lost out to Idris Elba ("Beasts of No Nation") on Saturday.

Stallone was not nominated in the category (and Elba was shockingly snubbed in the Oscar category), so the Elba win could be a big tell of how SAG members voted for the Oscars. 



We officially have an Oscar race for Best Picture.

First "Spotlight" came out and became the early best picture frontrunner. Then "The Big Short" was released at the end of the year and had its own loyal following. And that's how it's been most of awards season, both titles jockeying for the lead among the awards pundits. But with the best performance by a cast win by "Spotlight" at the SAG Awards, the movie has now edged ahead. 

Keep an eye out, however, for the winners at the PGA Awards (Producers Guild of America) and the DGA Awards (Directors Guild of America). As Awards Daily's Sasha Stone points out, if "Spotlight" or "The Big Short" won both of those, historically, it would have best picture in the bag. 

 



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Snoop Dogg is furious about Flint's water scandal

Hulu's one big advantage over Netflix is on the chopping block

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hulu ceo mike hopkinsHulu's one big advantage over Netflix has historically been its roster of current-season TV episodes from hit shows, but that will evaporate if Time Warner gets its way.

Time Warner is deep in talks to buy a 25% stake in Hulu, but the company ultimately wants episodes of current TV seasons to be kicked off Hulu, according to The Wall Street Journal. This isn't a condition for investment, but it puts Time Warner fundamentally at odds with something that has been an integral part of Hulu's business model and has helped the service snag 10 million subscribers (for reference, Netflix has about 45 million US subscribers).

Why does Time Warner want to cripple Hulu's big advantage?

The company sees "next-day" TV content as something that undermines the value of its pay-TV packages, The Journal reports. Time Warner fears that Hulu's popularity, especially built on the back of current TV seasons, will accelerate cord-cutting, or the ditching of cable subscriptions altogether.

At its core, the argument comes down to whether you believe the big bundle, the 500-channel cable package, can be saved. Time Warner clearly does, and it wants to bulk up its own TV Everywhere packages, which are tied to a cable subscription. From this vantage point, it's easy to see why Time Warner sees Hulu as undercutting its business.

But if you believe the big bundle is ultimately doomed, Hulu seems like the logical place for companies like Time Warner to experiment with the idea of a slimmer bundle, beginning to build the next generation of media distribution.

If Time Warner strips Hulu of next-day shows, Hulu will be forced into more direct competition with Netflix. That probably means staking a huge part of its future on original content, as licensing old seasons of shows is a tough way to build an enduring brand. Hulu scored its first Golden Globe nomination this year for its comedy "Casual," but it still has a ways to go in producing shows on par with Netflix.

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'Shark Tank' investor Daymond John says this daily ritual changed his life

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daymond john

When Daymond John was 14 years old, his dyslexia had yet to be diagnosed, and he only knew that he struggled with reading. But there was one book, Napoleon Hill's 1937 massive bestseller "Think and Grow Rich," that he not only happily read, but decided to re-read every year.

The main takeaway he had as a kid, the "Shark Tank" investor writes in his own book, "The Power of Broke," was to stop telling himself everything he didn't want to be, and instead focus on what he did want. He sustained this mindset through the practice of regularly writing down and reviewing his goals.

It was simple but profound, John says, and helped give him the drive in his early 20s to turn FUBU from a project with friends into a multimillion-dollar business. "I would write something down, think about it, visualize it, and work my way toward it."

As an adult, he added more layers to the process and made it a ritual that he does five days a week:

  • John keeps a running list of about seven goals at a time, which he writes on a piece of paper. Each goal has an expiration date and a couple lines detailing how he'll achieve the goal.
  • They will always include a health goal, family goal, business goal, relationship goal, and philanthropy goal. The other two often involve another business project or his personal finances.
  • Each goal is specific and worded in positive language. For example, John writes that he currently has a goal of getting down to 170 pounds by July 4; rather than add that he will do this by avoiding fried foods, meat, and alcohol, he adds that he will be doing this by regularly eating fish, drinking eight glasses of water each day, and exercising twice daily.
  • John reads through his list when he wakes up and before he goes to sleep so that his goals are the first and last things he thinks about.
  • He reads his goals an average of five days a week, giving himself some time to step back.

"When you've got a tangible, accessible goal, you've put it within reach," John writes.

SEE ALSO: Daymond John reveals what he learned from losing $750,000 on the first season of 'Shark Tank'

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NOW WATCH: Here’s how Shark Tank’s Daymond John beats out the other Sharks to score a deal

A celebrity trainer explains why it's okay to take a cheat day

Vanessa Hudgens gave an incredible performance in 'Grease: Live' hours after her dad died

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Vanessa Hudgens rocked it in "Grease: Live" hours after her dad died, announcing on Twitter that she was performing in her dad's honor. Twitter erupted with praise after her performance.

Story by Aly Weisman and editing by Jeremy Dreyfuss

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