Tag: business brokerages

The principal value of a business broker is to act as a buffer between the buyer and the seller

Remote work made digital nomads possible. The pandemic made them essential

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This story is part of  The Road Ahead , a series that examines the future of travel and how we’ll experience the world after the pandemic. In April, a radio DJ, a marine ecologist, a water polo player, and a migrant studies scholar flew to idyllic Dubrovnik, a seaside city in Croatia with a vast labyrinth of medieval architecture famed for composing the scenery of the cult fantasy TV show Game of Thrones . Hailing from Finland, Japan, and the United States, the travelers were among 10 lucky winners of a first-of-its-kind  digital nomad residency contest, for which the prize was a month-long stay in the lush “Pearl of the Adriatic” with complimentary meals and lodging. The residents ate, drank, networked, and day-tripped to the cliffs of Konavle—home of 2020’s most beautiful beach in Europe—and the island of Mljet, which is shrouded in dense forest that features exciting hazards like venomous snakes and wild mongooses. Ostensibly, they were there to brainstorm how to design Dubrovnik as a nomad-friendly city in the digital age. But for Croatia, the real goal was to market its own image away from a “holiday playground,” as program director Tanja Polegubic calls it, into a serious long-term destination for remote workers. You could think of it as striking while the iron is hot—or really, while Croatia is hot: During the COVID-19 pandemic, the country saw an influx of workers fleeing expensive cities in western Europe. “Asia wasn’t an option, so a lot of people were looking to the Balkans because the further east you go, it’s a lot cheaper,” Polegubic says. Croatia’s not alone: Countries spanning the Caribbean isle to the Arabian desert are suddenly pivoting to court digital nomads in the post-coronavirus era, dangling everything from free vaccines, to tax breaks, to the chance to live in tropical paradise. Call it a new global arms race, where the weapon in question is an arsenal of highly skilled remote workers—ones that were trapped in their homes during the pandemic, but could now be untethered by it from their offices forever. With a new class of human capital up for grabs, countries are looking to stockpile talent, and digital nomads are living a new reality: They’ve become a hot commodity. COVID-19 was an existential crisis: For the first time, a community built around having no fixed address was forced to shelter in place.” Digital nomads, ironically, are easy to locate. By nature of their lifestyle, many have built careers on the internet: sharing snapshots of dreamy landscapes spun from coconut palm trees and rainbow-colored villas, hosting blogs that detail the ins and outs of life perpetually on the road Read More …

It’s time to take videos of Black Americans dying offline

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Since 2013, when Black Lives Matter erupted on the scene to challenge the acquittal of Florida resident George Zimmerman for killing 17-year old Trayvon Martin, images of Black Americans dying on-screen have become as constant as air. In the last week, videos pertaining to at least four instances of police violence against Black Americans have circulated online. At the same time, a Minnesota jury found former police officer Derek Chauvin guilty for the murder of George Floyd. The video of Chauvin kneeling on Floyd’s neck while Floyd gasped for breath sparked a movement for police accountability that led to Chauvin’s conviction on all charges. But that video, which has continued to circulate, is also deeply traumatizing. Now Allissa V. Richardson, an author and journalism professor at the University of Southern California, is calling for more guardrails around publishing visual accounts of violence against Black people Read More …

The five best arguments that Apple’s App Store is a monopoly

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Apple and Google testified in front of the Senate Judiciary’s Antitrust Subcommittee Wednesday, and it’s fair to say the committee members came with their A game and that Apple walked away the biggest loser. At issue are the strict rules Apple imposes on app developers for the privilege of being listed in the App Store, which is virtually the only way developers can access the huge worldwide market of iPhone users. Google may be somewhat less in the antitrust crosshairs because it allows Android users to side-load apps from other marketplaces and websites. But both Apple and Google require many developers to use their respective marketplaces’ own proprietary payment systems to sell their apps, and they charge the developers up to 30% to do so. Both Democrats and Republicans in the hearing seemed surprised at that high toll and wondered out loud whether it would be so high if the two main app stores faced more competition. The subcommittee members had clearly coordinated their efforts before the hearing and presented Apple with a wide-ranging, and nonoverlapping, set of informed and relevant questions. However, the hearing was especially fiery because some big-name app developers who have a beef with the app stores—Spotify, Tile, and Tinder’s parent, Match Group—were sitting at the witness table too. Some of the best arguments against Apple’s App Store policies came from them. Spotify’s App Store blues Case in point: Spotify’s lawyer Horacio Gutierrez pointed out that not only is his company required to use Apple’s payment system (and pay the “Apple tax”), but the music app is also prohibited from directing users of its free iOS app to online promotions offering three months of Spotify Premium for 99¢. Gutierrez called this a “gag order.” Spotify had the sympathy of Democrat Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, the chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee’s antitrust subcommittee, even before the hearing. “[Telling people] they can get a better deal [on an app] on a website, when the companies . . . on the app store are banned from doing that, that’s pretty outrageous,” Klobuchar told me on the phone Tuesday night. Spotify has a particularly interesting viewpoint because it competes directly with Apple’s own Music service, which naturally gets more visibility in the App Store. Klobuchar called this “self-preferencing.” Gutierrez said Apple had threatened retaliation against Spotify and in some cases carried it out. He claimed Apple told Spotify straight out that it would not promote the Spotify app and forced Spotify to wait for months for app-upgrade approvals. Read More …

How Apple designed AirTags to be privacy-first and stalker-proof

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Apple’s “Spring Loaded” event on Tuesday offered a bonanza of new hardware announcements, including some unexpected ones. But while Apple went big and loud with the new iMacs and powerful with the new M1 iPad Pros, the company also launched a tiny and discreet new product: the AirTag. AirTag is Apple’s long-rumored tracking gadget, designed to be attached to an item to track its location in your house—or across the city. The product has been long in development and will take on the likes of other trackers already on the market, such as Tile . However, as with many things Apple, the company says AirTag has one massive advantage over its competitors: It was built from the ground up around privacy. “When it came to designing our own product, we thought carefully about how to get this right in a way that no one else in the industry’s ever done before,” says Kaiann Drance, Apple’s VP of worldwide iPhone product marketing. I spoke to her and Ron Huang, the company’s senior director of sensing and connectivity, about Apple’s newest, tiniest gadget. “You’ll see that we designed for the privacy of AirTag owners and nonowners, as well as making these benefits opened up to third-party products as well .” [Photo: courtesy of Apple] And from a privacy standpoint, that’s what’s really remarkable about the AirTag: Apple isn’t just thinking about the privacy of AirTag owners themselves, or even solely about users in Apple’s ecosystem. The company designed the AirTag with the privacy of everyone in mind—yes, even Android users and people who have never owned an Apple product. So just what are Apple’s AirTag privacy protections that keep it in the realm of a truly useful tool instead of a gadget for stalkers? Privacy for AirTag owners Each AirTag is about the size of a coat button and is designed to let you track whatever item you’ve attached it to, all from the Find My app on the iPhone, iPad, Mac, or iCloud.com. You set up a new AirTag by pairing the diminutive gadget with your iPhone. Read More …

Amy Klobuchar: Apple, Google app store rules are “pretty outrageous”

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Executives from Apple and Google will testify in front of Congress on Wednesday, and are likely to face tough questioning about the way they manage their respective app stores. Apple’s chief compliance officer Kyle Andeer and Google’s senior director of government affairs Wilson White will appear in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee’s antitrust subcommittee, which is chaired by Democrat Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota. The hearing  comes as Congress readies legislation that could revamp antitrust law to better deal with 21st century monopolies, and better arm government agencies to enforce the law. The main topic of discussion will be the revenue sharing requirement imposed by the app stores on developers. Larger developers must pay 30% of their app or subscription revenue to Apple or Google during the first year of inclusion in their respective app stores. Many developers, whether they’ll say so publicly or not, think the 30% fee is onerous. Some have spoken out, including the music app developer Spotify, the dating app developer Match Group, and the Bluetooth tracker app developer Tile–and all will testify Wednesday. They’ll likely find some sympathetic ears on the other side of the room. You can’t argue that telling consumers they can get a better deal another way somehow jeopardizes security.” Sen. Amy Klobuchar “The 15% to 30% tax is such a whopping amount of money that the companies are charged for advertising on the app store,” Klobuchar told me on Tuesday evening. “The thing that I noticed myself was, like other consumers, I sometimes wonder why I can’t get that app on the app store–what’s wrong with that company? I never understood it until I looked at this [app store issue], and it’s because they don’t want to pay that amount of money.” Klobuchar says she hopes hopes her committee can learn some things about the app stores and the app economy by hearing both sides of the debate. But, she said, it’s also important that the public learn about the business practices of Apple and Google. She zeroes in on the fact that Apple makes it very hard for developers to avoid using its In-App Payment system, and paying the 15% to 30% fee. Read More …