Four-day week: Trial finds lower stress and increased productivity: Guardian reports, the study of pilot at New Zealand firm finds staff were happier and 20% more productive.
Designers in demand like never before: In 2012, IBM employed one designer for every 72 engineers. Today, IBM has eight engineers to every designer, and that ratio goes to 3:1 on mobile.
Did you know? Under the Sea + Pitch Decks + Sleepmore + K-beauty
The ocean is the new farm: Farms under the sea could feed the world in 2050 (video): http://bit.ly/2SQzde0
30 legendary startup pitch decks: http://bit.ly/2SMNA2C
Stomach-churning challenges: Greenhouse gas emissions from livestock are presenting the food industry with many challenges. Here’s one: gassy cows. “Burping cows are more damaging to the climate than all the cars on this planet,” Barclays said in a report.
Sleepmore in Seattle: A study in Seattle shows the power of starting the day later. The study is already having an impact. School boards in Orlando and Philadelphia are already looking at this example to see if it should make similar changes. In France, backed by advocates pushing the study’s findings, Parisian teenagers will be allowed an extra hour’s sleep before school in a move to improve their health.
South Korea’s cosmetics industry takes aim at the super young: WP reports, the effort by the industry — known as K-beauty — to reach out to girls as young as 4 is stirring concerns that touch on many core social debates in South Korea, a country that is famous for its exacting beauty norms and has one of the highest rates of plastic surgery in the world.
Did you know? Hyperloop + High Street + Middle Class + eSports
A real tube carrying dreams of 600-MPH transit: NYT reports, Virgin Hyperloop One is testing a system that would put passengers in pods hurtling through vacuum tubes. Other companies are moving ahead with similar plans.
High street ‘not dead’ and could be industry hub, says report: FT reports, Britain’s high street “is not dead” and struggling town and city centres could be transformed by becoming industry hubs instead of places to shop, according to new research refuting claims that a crisis in bricks-and-mortar retail is killing then off. The Centre for Cities, an independent think-tank, said on Tuesday that local councils should shift town centre economies away from an “overreliance on retail” towards high-skilled industry, and said the belief that high streets were “dying” was misplaced.
The shrinking middle class: By the numbers: Fortune reports, the American middle-class ideal was forged in the decades after World War II, when economic growth and wage increases climbed in lockstep for nearly 30 years. That pairing dissolved abruptly in the 1970s. Between 1973 and 2017, according to the Economic Policy Institute, the productivity of the economy grew 77%—but average compensation rose only 12.4%, adjusted for inflation. This divergence coincided with a shift in economic gravity, away from manufacturing and toward services and “knowledge industries.” That shift weakened the labor unions that had helped rank-and-file workers in many professions claim a bigger share of the bounty. Just as important were tax reforms that favored investment and real estate earnings over wage income. The upshot: an economic order in which the capital-owning class enjoys great advantages—and the costs of admission to and the exclusion from that class grow ever higher.
eSports revenue: Global revenue from eSports is expected to reach a record $1.1B this year, topping $1B for the first time, up 27% from 2018 driven by advertising, sponsorship and media rights, according to a just-released report from industry research and consulting firm NewZoo.
Bloomberg Sound ON: Trump tariffs, national emergency, and Amazon (Podcast)
Bloomberg Chief Washington Correspondent Kevin Cirilli delivers insight and analysis on the latest headlines from the White House and Capitol Hill, including conversations with influential lawmakers and key figures in politics and policy.
Kevin discussed the fallout from Amazon’s decision to drop their NYC expansion plans, Trump’s national emergency declaration to build a wall and the progress on trade talks with China with guests Marc Ross, founder of Brigadoon and Caracal Global and Bloomberg News Congressional reporter Anna Edgerton.
Listen here: https://bloom.bg/2SHtOFS