Category: Finance

San Francisco, CA — August 20, 2025Databricks, the data and AI software company, is set to raise a new round of funding led by Thrive Capital that could value the firm at over $100 billion, according to company statements and investor sources. The Series K round marks a significant milestone for the privately held company, […]

Consumers don’t mind when companies use misspelled words – think Lyft for “lift” or Froot Loops for “fruit loops” – as their brand names, as long as the alterations aren’t too extreme and the misspelling makes sense. Those are the main findings of a new peer-reviewed paper I published with fellow marketing scholar Leah Warfield […]

Two big assumptions underlie President Donald Trump’s attack on diversity, equity and inclusion policies. The first is that discrimination against people of color is a thing of the past. The second is that DEI policies and practices discriminate against white people – especially white men – in what’s sometimes called “reverse discrimination.” I’m a sociologist […]

TOKYO / SANTA CLARA — August 18, 2025 — Japanese investment conglomerate SoftBank Group Corp. announced Monday that it will make a $2 billion equity investment in Intel Corporation, marking a significant vote of confidence in the U.S. chipmaker as it seeks to regain ground in the global semiconductor race. The agreement, signed by both […]

People rely on data from federal agencies every day – often without realizing it. Rural residents use groundwater level data from the U.S. geological survey’s National Water Information System to decide where to dig wells. High school coaches turn to weather apps supported by data from the National Weather Service to decide when to move […]

It is widely understood that low-income countries and populations are more exposed and vulnerable to the effects of climate change—and therefore more badly in need of help with adaptation and resilience building. At the same time, it is also increasingly recognized that the current climate finance architecture struggles to put adaptation financing directly into the […]

Many employers are demanding more from workers these days, pushing them to log as many hours as possible. Google, for example, told all its employees that they should expect to spend 60 or more hours in the office every week. Some tech companies are demanding 12-hour days, six days a week from their new hires. […]

Gender gaps in access to financial services are narrowing— according to the World Bank’s newly published Findex 2025 dataset, the share of women with accounts has climbed to 77%, just four percentage points behind men, globally. In low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), the gender gap stands at five percentage points (78% of men vs. 73% […]

Faculty hiring freezes. Department budget cuts. Declining public trust. Across the United States, higher education is navigating one of its most challenging periods in decades. Yet, quietly, something else is happening: More universities are adding chief marketing officers, or CMOs, to their top management teams. From flagship universities to small regional colleges, public universities are […]

Financial health is rising on global policy agendas — from G20 summits to UN conferences — as countries confront economic volatility and growing household vulnerability. In 2024, financial health was spotlighted by the G20’s Global Partnership on Financial Inclusion (GPFI) and referenced in the UN’s Financing for Development Outcome Document, signaling broader recognition of its […]