SavvySugar

Jerry Seinfeld Microsoft Commercial: Hit or Miss?

SavvySugar — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 06:30:02 -0700

Microsoft wasn't messing around when it landed on a $300 million number to fund a new advertising campaign starring Jerry Seinfeld. The first advertisement was recently released and it's gotten mixed reviews. Some ad-industry professionals are saying the commercial is a success because it's creating buzz about Microsoft, but others have said that it misses the mark and does nothing to change the brand's dull image.

Melinda Gates Opens Up

SavvySugar — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 12:37:31 -0800

Three Ms come to mind when I hear the name Bill Gates: Microsoft, money, and Melinda.

The first made him wealthy, the second keeps him in the news, and the third recently opened up to Fortune for her first-ever profile! Besides talking to Fortune, Melinda has been dedicating 30 hours a week to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. She explained her time commitment when she said, “As I thought about strong women of history, I realized that they stepped out in some way.”

Here are some interesting facts about the Gates:

Melinda has a BA and a MBA from Duke University, while Bill was a Harvard dropout.
She started working for Microsoft in Seattle when she was 22 years old, and four months into the job she was seated next to Bill at a dinner. She was attracted to his humor - what girl doesn't love a guy that makes her laugh - and he thought she was a looker.

Three more so, read more

Melinda kept office life professional and was promoted several times at Microsoft, refusing to accompany Bill to any work-related events.
She's a very compassionate woman and really got the ball rolling with their foundation work. The foundation has already given away $14.4 billion.
Melinda says she and Bill will follow Warren Buffett's philosophy in considering the distribution of their weatlh: "A very rich person should leave his kids enough to do anything, but not enough to do nothing."

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The World's 10 Most Valuable Brands

SavvySugar — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 04:30:11 -0700

You might think a ranking of the world's most valuable brands is just another meaningless list, but look closer and you can see that these brands and their worth say a lot about our global culture. It would be a safe bet to say the majority of citizens in most developed countries would easily recognize these names. According to Interbrand's Best Global Brands annual report, these are the top 10 most valuable brands in the world in 2009.

Coca-Cola: $68.73 billion
IBM: $60.21 billion
Microsoft: $56.65 billion
GE: $47.78 billion
Nokia: $34.86 billion
McDonald's: $32.28 billion
Google:$31.98 billion
Toyota: $31.33 billion
Intel: $30.64 billion
Disney: $28.45 billion

How Money Are You: Powerful CEOs' First Jobs After College

SavvySugar — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 10:30:41 -0700

Just like the many celebrities who started their careers in less-than-glamorous jobs, the CEOs of some of the largest corporations had to work their way up to rollin'-in-it status. It would be awesome to say your job is, oh, just running Yahoo or Microsoft, but you can't exactly step out of college and fill a CEO's shoes. How much do you know about CEOs' first jobs? Take the quiz!

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The 10 Most Financially Sound Companies of 2008

SavvySugar — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 04:30:21 -0800

The numbers are finally in from 2008, and among all of the big-named bankruptcies that occurred last year there were some financial knights. Strength in numbers wasn't easy to come by during a year that beat up most everyone, but Fortune managed to find ten that came out on top of the business world in 2008.

Exxon Mobil
Graybar Electric
Berkshire Hathaway
Intel
Altria Group
Nestlé
Occidental Petroleum
Microsoft
Sysco
Walt Disney

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News Flash: Yahoo! Has 700 Job Openings

SavvySugar — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 04:06:55 -0700

When I overheard a woman bragging about her recent Yahoo! promotion on the bus the other day, I assumed it was a rightfully earned accomplishment - but headlines about high-level departures suggest the move may have been more out of necessity than purely deserving hard work.

Yahoo! has some odds working against them like incongruous management, Microsoft abandoning their bid to buy the company, and a falling stock price, but recruiters have ramped up hiring efforts in Silicon Valley to fill about 700 open positions. Engineers are particularly in demand at the tech company but other opportunities also exist.

Vanity Fair Windfall Report Is 49 Men, 1 Woman, and 1 Dog

SavvySugar — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 09:42:00 -0800

Vanity Fair just released their 2007 Windfall Report - a.k.a., the biggest paydays last year for the guys whose bank accounts hardly needed the boost. How did they get even richer, you ask? Their windfalls included cashing out stocks, receiving inheritances, selling a family business, real estate deals, or jumping on a lucrative initial public offering.

Bill Gates tops the list for selling $2.5 billion of his Microsoft shares and collecting another few hundred million in dividends. Bill-ion Gates, anyone? Coming in second is Peter Peterson (real name) whose windfall from the Blackstone I.P.O. earned him $1.9 billion practically overnight. Next they name the Chandler Family who got third place by selling the Tribune Co. for $1.7 billion.

Windfalls worth billions continue through number nine on the list of 50, and the smallest amount reported is $177 million. A notable observation about the report is that the only woman is Roxanne Quimby, who got her $185 million windfall when Clorox bought her company, Burt's Bees. Vanity Fair acknowledges that the $12 million inherited by Leona Helmsley's dog, Trouble, is a poochie windfall and gives the heir an honorable mention.

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Goldman Sachs Benefits Will Cover Sex Changes

SavvySugar — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 07:51:27 -0800

The reputably conservative Goldman Sachs added health-insurance coverage of sex reassignment surgery last year. The company said it considers the move part of a push to bring in talented candidates and to build a more diverse workforce. Sex change surgeries cost from $5,000 to $150,000 if they are paid out of pocket and that's before hormone and other drug treatments.

Goldman's plan covers the actual surgery and transgender-related prescription drugs, but it doesn't cover electrolysis and other cosmetic treatments. Other large firms offering some form of coverage for transgender treatments are Bank of America, Deutsche Bank, Wachovia, Microsoft, and General Motors. A spokesperson from New York Association for Gender Rights Advocacy said that coverage of the surgery won't break a company's bank because "of the few transgendered employees there may be at any given company, most don't actually want a surgical sex change."

Goldman Sachs was ranked ninth on Fortune's 100 Best Companies to Work For. Want to get a job there? Get some tips here.

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