Economy

The election in the USA Reactions to the debate
Business leaders on the debate: "Tends to bounce back"

After the high-profile presidential debate between Joe Biden and Donald Trump, two influential business leaders have written about the event.

Reid Hoffman, co-founder of Linkedin and partner at Greylock, advises against calling on Joe Biden to resign. "When he does poorly, he tends to bounce back -- and then win," he writes, according to the NYT Dealbook newsletter.

Bridgewater's founder Ray Dalio instead wants to replace Biden, but regardless, the choice is between two extremes. "While you may rightly react to my using controversially sharp words like 'fascists', 'socialists' and 'communists' to describe the alternatives, I think these are relatively minor exaggerations," he writes.

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Economy
Buffett gives away 99 percent to charity - but stops money for Gates

Financier Warren Buffett confirms in an interview with the Wall Street Journal that he plans to donate his fortune to a foundation that his three children will manage. He thereby ends his donations to the Gates Foundation, which has received a total of about $43 billion over two decades.

- The Gates Foundation will not receive any money after my death, Warren Buffett told the WSJ.

Warren Buffett's ownership of Berkshire now consists of 207,963 Class A shares and 2,586 Class B shares. "Nothing extraordinary has occurred at Berkshire [...] My will stipulates that more than 99 percent of my estate is intended for philanthropic purposes," Buffett wrote in a statement.

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Economy
Study: Duck colleagues who gossip - on certain issues

A gossiping colleague can experience both positive and negative consequences, according to new research in the journal Experimental Social Psychology.

The researchers studied how third parties, i.e. co-workers who were not involved in the gossip, viewed the matter in five different experiments. Gossipers were perceived as more social but also less trustworthy, which affected how people interacted with them. Colleagues were more likely to ask gossipers for advice on social activities, but less likely to seek their advice on moral or competence-related issues.

"Workplace gossip is an integral part of organizations and critical to their functioning," the researchers write in the conclusion, emphasizing the importance of understanding the perceived and behavioral consequences of organizational members who engage in gossip compared to those who refrain from it.