Business

A French Bulldog is favored to win the Westminster dog show and represents a wildly popular but controversial breed

The United States new favorite dog breed the comical, controversial French bulldog has never won the nations pre-eminent dog show.

Yet here, at an obliging trot, comes Winston. The Frenchie with NFL connections is a strong contender at this weeks Westminster Kennel Club dog show, less than two months after the release of rankings showing that his kind has become the countrys most prevalent dog breed.

Frenchies rise has been stunning: from 83rd most popular to No. 1 in three decades. It also has been dogged by concerns about their health, debate over the ethics of breeding, denunciations of a gold-rush-like market with ever more exotic variations, and a recent spate of high-profile and sometimes fatal robberies.

If all that says something about these stumpy-snouted, pointy-eared, deep-chested, quizzical little bulldogs, what does it say about the culture that loves them?

Their media image impacts their popularity

Just like humans, dogs get characterized for what they can do, but more importantly what they can symbolize, says Cameron Whitley, a Western Washington University sociology professor and the chair-elect of the American Sociological Associations Animals and Society section. Whitley argues that breeds popularity depends less on their traits than on their portrayal in media and pop culture.

Indeed, a 2013 study found no indication that longer lifespans, better behavior or other desirable characteristics make a dog breed more sought-after. One of the authors, Western Carolina University psychology professor Hal Herzog, also has observed that parabolic spikes in dog breeds resemble those in baby names, hit songs and other boom-and-bust commodities of pop culture. In short, theyre canine memes.

The dogs have become a form of fashion, says Herzog, who wrote a book about human attitudes and conduct toward animals.

French bulldogs have a colorful, centuries-long history involving English lacemakers, the Parisian demimonde and Gilded Age American tourists who brought the dogs home. (One even died in the 1912 sinking of the Titanic. ) But the breeds U.S. heyday soon ended.

Then Americans got a fresh look at Frenchies in the current century. They turned up on domesticity maven Martha Stewarts TV show, then in narrative series and movies (such as Modern Family and Due Date), ads (including Super Bowl spots for Skechers in 2012 and Bud Light this year) and the social media accounts of celebrity owners (Lady Gaga, Dwayne The Rock Johnson and many more).

French bulldog fans point to attributes beyond camera-readiness to explain the dogs appeal. They boast easy-care coats, modest exercise needs, an apartment-friendly size and a demeanor memorably described as a clown in the cloak of a philosopher.

Yet that hasnt translated into wins at Westminster, where each dog is judged against an ideal for its own breed, not against others.

Still, longtime breeder and French Bull Dog Club of America spokesperson Patty Sosa posits that Frenchies might have been out-flashed by showier-looking breeds, such as poodles. (Labrador retriever partisans harbored similar theories during the 31 years their breed topped the popularity charts; its still winless at Westminster.)

Winston, however, came within a whisker of the trophy last year, taking runner-up to the first bloodhound ever to win. The Frenchie later won another prominent competition, the National Dog Show in Philadelphia in November. He headed into Westminster as one of the show worlds most-winning dogs and bested dozens of other Frenchies on Monday morning to advance to the semifinals (the top prize will be awarded Tuesday night).

If a pooch can get a competitive edge through osmosis, the cream-colored 4-year-old probably has. He lives with part-owner Morgan Fox, a Los Angeles Chargers defensive end, and fiancee Kailyn Provin when not on the show circuit with handler and part-owner Perry Payson.

Besides Winstons physical attributes, his personality is to die for, says Sandy Fox, who bred him with Payson and is the NFL players grandmother. He loves to show.

To win Westminster on the heels of the popularity rankings would be awesome, she said. But like many other longtime breeders, Fox has mixed feelings about the nations ardor for Frenchies.

Its nice, she said, adding: A little scary. Everybody will want one.

People worry about their health

Show breeders who adhere to health testing and other guidelines feel that Frenchie fever already has attracted opportunistic, slapdash people producing anything-goes, possibly unhealthy pups. Theres concern that were losing the battle with education and just promoting a well-bred dog, Sosa said.

Some veterinarians also are worried for Frenchies all of them.

Partly because of their pushed-in, wrinkly faces, the animals are susceptible to breathing, eye, and other problems. While other breeds also have predispositions and mixed-breed dogs can be a question mark, recent research in Britain suggested Frenchies health is largely much poorer than that of other canines.

The British Veterinary Association has strongly recommended against buying any flat-faced dogs, and the Dutch government has prohibited breeding very short-snouted canines. In the U.S., the Humane Society Veterinary Medical Association a professional group with a focus on animal welfare advocacy wants to counter the dramatic increase in demand for push-faced dogs, partly by discouraging their use in advertising.

Owners who really love these dogs dont understand how much the dogs are suffering, says the groups education director, Dr. Lorna Grande. (The broader American Veterinary Medical Association, meanwhile, has said its exploring ways to improve flat-faced dogs well-being.)

Dr. Carrie Stefaniak has seen French bulldogs with breathing difficulties in her practice in Glendale, Wisconsin. She urges would-be owners to understand the breeds health risks and the potential expense of treatment. She emphasizes researching breeders carefully.

But shes quick to add that Frenchies can flourish.

The general public talks about the unhealthy ones, Stefaniak says, but we dont often hear about the 13-year-olds that are still out there, doing great, or the ones that are doing agility or taking long hikes.

Her own two French bulldogs do both those things.

The godfather of A.I. says his technology is a bigger threat than climate change. It's not at all clear what you should do

Geoffrey Hintons artificial intelligence (A.I.) research has helped enable the rise of technologies that were once the stuff of Sci-Fi flicks, from facial recognition to chatbots like OpenAIs ChatGPT and Googles Bard. The British-Canadian computer scientist earned the title, the godfather of A.I., by dedicating his career to the study of neural networkscomplex computer models whose layered structures mimic the human braindecades before the technology went mainstream. But Hinton resigned from a position he held at Google for over a decade last month, telling the New York Times he made the decision so he could freely discuss the dangers of A.I. without considering how it might impact the company.

Since then, he has been on a Paul Revere-esque campaign to warn about the existential risk to humanity that A.I. poses in a series of interviews which have even garnered the attention of the rapper Snoop Dogg, who recently referenced Hinton sayings claim that A.I. is not safe. Snoop gets it, Hinton told Wired Monday.

The A.I. pioneers latest cautionary message? Even the threat of climate change doesnt compare to A.I.

I wouldnt like to devalue climate change. I wouldnt like to say, You shouldnt worry about climate change. Thats a huge risk too, he told Reuters Friday. But I think this might end up being more urgent.

Hinton believes A.I. systems could eventually become more intelligent than humans and take over the planet, or bad actors could use the technology to fuel division in society in hopes of gaining powerand thats all before the threat of job losses. And while the solutions to climate change are quite obvious (just stop burning carbon) when it comes to A.I., Hinton warned that its not at all clear what you should do.

Repeated warnings

On his campaign to warn of the dangers of A.I., Hinton has compared the technology to the birth of Nuclear weapons, and admitted that he regrets much of his work now that he sees its destructive potential. I console myself with the normal excuse: If I hadnt done it, somebody else would have, he told the New York Times in late April.

Comparing the rise of artificial intelligence to the creation of nuclear weapons may sound hyperbolic, but even Warren Buffett sees the parallels. The 92-year-old investing legend referenced a warning Albert Einstein gave after the birth of the atomic bomb at Berkshire Hathaways annual conference over the weekend, noting that A.I. has can change everything in the world except how men think and behave.

And Hinton, who won the Turing Award for his lasting contributions of major technical importance to computer science in 2018, warned earlier this month in an interview with BBC of a nightmare scenario in which chatbots like ChatGPT are used to seek power. It is hard to see how you can prevent the bad actors from using it for bad things, he said.

In a separate interview at MIT Technology Reviews EmTech Digital conference last week, the computer scientist told the crowd: These things will have learned from us, by reading all the novels that ever were and everything Machiavelli ever wrote, how to manipulate people. Even if they cant directly pull levers, they can certainly get us to pull levers.

I wish I had a nice simple solution for this, but I dont, he added. Im not sure there is a solution.

But no A.I. pause?

The potential risks posed by A.I. led over 1,100 prominent figures in tech, including Tesla CEO Elon Musk and Apple cofounder Steve Wozniak, to sign an open letter calling for a six-month pause on the development of advanced A.I. systems earlier this year. But Hinton told Reuters Wednesday that a pause in A.I. development is utterly unrealistic.

Im in the camp that thinks this is an existential risk, and its close enough that we ought to be working very hard right now, and putting a lot of resources into figuring out what we can do about it, he said.

In an interview with CNN last week, the computer scientist explained that if the U.S. stopped developing A.I. tech, China wouldnt. And in a May 5 tweet, he clarified his position:

There is so much possible benefit that I think we should continue to develop it but also put comparable resources into making sure its safe.
To that end, President Biden and Vice President Harris met A.I. leaders including Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman last week to discuss the need for safety and transparency in the field as well as the potential for new regulations. And the European Unions A.I. Actwhich classifies A.I. systems into different risk categories, adds transparency requirements, and laws to prevent biasis expected to be operational by the end of the year. After Musks letter, a committee of E.U. lawmakers also agreed to a new set of proposals which would force A.I. companies to disclose when they use copyright material to train their systems, Reuters first reported May 1.

Postal workers are 'outraged and angered' by a 78% rise in robberies that target them, often at gunpoint

Postal carriers have more worries than snow, rain or the gloom of night keeping them from their appointed rounds. Theyre increasingly being robbed, often at gunpoint, from Maine to California.

Robberies of postal carriers have exploded, surging 78% to nearly 500 in 2022, according to data provided by U.S. Postal Inspection Service to The Associated Press under the Freedom of Information Act.

Letter carriers are demanding action from the U.S. Postal Service.

The National Association of Letter Carriers is outraged and angered by the assaults, armed robberies and even murders that Americas letter carriers increasingly face as they deliver the mail. These attacks are completely unacceptable, said Paul Barner, the unions executive vice president.

The Postal Service said its adapting and implementing new measures to address the robberies, which are taking a toll on letter carriers tasked with delivering about 162.1 million pieces of first-class mail each day.

Every postal employee deserves to work in safety and to be free from targeting by criminals seeking to access the publics mail, said Michael Martel, spokesperson for the inspection service.

The robberies have more than quadrupled over a decade, the data show. Weapons were used in most of the 496 robberies, injuring 31 postal carriers, last year. One, Milwaukee letter carrier Aundre Cross, was shot to death, leading to three arrests.

They definitely need some type of security, said Crosss friend, Jared Tangle. They need someone watching their back, so they can do their jobs safely.

Many of these criminals are becoming more sophisticated and organized. Some are targeting the special keys that carriers use to access collection boxes and to deliver mail in apartment buildings.

A case this January north of Boston was typical. A letter carrier in Peabody was on his route when a 20-year-old man told him, Give me your keys and Hurry up or Ill shoot you while pointing a semi-automatic handgun at the carrier, law enforcement officials said. The assailant fled but was later arrested.

In March, a postal carrier was slashed with a machete in Lowell, Massachusetts. That assailant also was located and arrested.

The Postal Service leadership is preparing to announce more measures to address the problem, USPS spokesperson Dave Partenheimer said.

Already, the service is working to enhance collection box key and lock technology; implement dual authentication to make keys less attractive targets for criminals; and harden blue collection boxes to prevent tampering, while continuing to work closely with other law enforcement agencies to bring the criminals to justice, Partenheimer said.

Partenheimer added Monday that the USPS is in the process of briefing congressional committees on its responses to postal crime.

Theft of mail carries a penalty of up to five years in prison, and possession, concealment or disposal of property carries a sentence of up to 10 years in prison, Martel said. Assault carries a sentence of up to 10 years for a first offense, and up to 25 years for a subsequent offense, he said.

We will continue to adapt to evolving security threats and implement expanded measures to safeguard our employees and preserve the security of the mail that our customers expect and deserve, Partenheimer said.

But Barner said letter carriers demand solutions now.

While we will continue to engage with the Postal Service and relevant law enforcement agencies to develop measures that will enhance the safety of letter carriers, the fear and the danger that letter carriers are confronting has to end, Barners statement said.

5 ways resisters may be undermining your DEI program and what to do about it

Several weeks ago, many of us watched Silicon Valley Bank, the 16th-largest bank in the country fail, seemingly overnight. Some saw the banks collapse as an opportunity to blame an all too familiar bogeymanwokenessbecause of the institutions commitment to workplace diversity and making environmentally and socially minded investments, when poor financial risk management was clearly to blame.

Despite the well-documented benefits of diversity, equity, and inclusion programs (DEI), there are still many voices of resistance. Sometimes its overt, as with SVBs armchair quarterbacks, and sometimes its more subtle.

That resistance is keeping many companies, and their employees, from being part of a workplace where there is a true diversity of opportunity and thought, with all of the benefits that brings to the culture and to the bottom line. In an environment of tightening budgets, many companies are paring away anything that is not a core function of the business, and in doing so are divesting from DEI programs or deprioritizing them.

If you feel progress in your organization has stalled, here are some mindsets that may signal you are facing veiled resistance, and some ideas on how to respond.

We just need to see the data that DEI makes sense

The business case for diversity has been proven many times over. Detractors often hide their resistance in an endless string of requests for more information proving that employees will be happier, or the business will profit more, if a DEI program is added or deepened.

Sometimes a request for more data is a good-faith attempt to ensure that an organizations approach to DEI is rigorous and connected to helpful metrics. Sometimes its a stalling tactic. Although it is important to back any program with rigorous data, DEI is still an evolving discipline, and the data on it is relatively new. Waiting until theres enough data on it to make a case to the Supreme Court will result in one thing: nothing being done.

The companies that are most successful in building a culture where all team members feel welcome are diving into their programs and course-correcting if theyve made a mistake. They dont want to risk losing talent or customers because they have failed to do anything meaningful.

We dont have the luxury of building for tomorrow right now

In todays business environment, resisters often use this argument to put DEI efforts, such as recruiting in brand new arenas, on the back burnerand double down on traditional notions of what talent looks like. Their mindset leaves them unable to meet the challenges of today. Both employees and customers expect the companies where they work and do business to include people like themselves right now, and if they dont see any diversity, they will go elsewhere.

We hire for culture fit

Its hard to achieve DEI when you are hiring for culture fit, because generally speaking, people who are very similar to your current team will fit most seamlessly into your culture. Generally, hiring for values fit will help you achieve greater diversity. This means hiring people who align with your core values. For instance, asking prospective employees in job interviews for examples of how they demonstrated the companys core values is a good way to find people from different backgrounds who share common beliefs, such as We keep our promises.

HR is handling it

DEI isnt just an HR concern. It takes place anytime your organization touches a human, from your website to your product or service to the leadership style of your C-suite executives. The best programs consider a persons experience with your organization. Do they feel seen by your organization? Is your product or service mindful of their needs? Are they experiencing bias or even harm with you? DEI is about culture, education, learning and development opportunities, customer experience, marketing and branding, and internal communications. Thinking about how to do that intentionally can help you take your program to the next level.

Its an American problem

Many companies treat DEI as a challenge thats confined to the United States. But in fact, firms around the world are grappling with many similar issues when it comes to making sure they have an equitable representation of people that accounts for race, gender, sexuality, disability, and age. If youre looking to engage people globally, you need to stay on top of global trends in DEI.

Ultimately, there is no easy answer to resisters. Willingness to keep DEI programs in place, regardless of what the economy does, and to gather feedback consistently so they can be improved upon, are important steps. There are many exciting opportunities that come with embracing DEI, such as finding new talent and customers. But companies have to make a serious commitment to achieve the best results.

Y-Vonne Hutchinson is the CEO and founder of ReadySet, a diversity and inclusion training firm; author of How to Talk to Your Boss About Race: Speaking Up Without Getting Shut Down; and a member of YPO.

Warren Buffett 'feels better' about investing in Japan than Taiwan

Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffet has adjusted his investing gameplan for East Asia after divesting himself from a considerable stake in TSMC, Taiwans leading chip manufacturer. The tense geopolitical situation surrounding the island has pushed foreign investors to reconsider their exposure, but the Oracle of Omaha has already picked out the most suitable alternative in the region as he hunts for his next big investment.

I feel better about the capital that weve got deployed in Japan than in Taiwan, Buffett said at Berkshire Hathaways annual shareholder meeting on Saturday. I wish it werent so but I think that is the reality and Ive reevaluated that in the light of certain things that have been going on.

Buffett dumped most of his companys $4.1 billion stake in TSMC last year only months after acquiring it, and the legendary investor signaled that the mounting threat of war was a consideration behind that call in an interview last month with Japanese news outlet Nikkei.

Tensions over the island country that China considers a breakaway state have risen in recent months, after a series of diplomatic visits between the U.S. and Taiwan, as well as President Joe Bidens declarations that the U.S. would come to the islands aid in the event of a military invasion. The nervous climate has been punctuated by more frequent incursions of Chinese aircraft into Taiwans air defense zone.

The geopolitical threat has had a knock-on effect for the worlds economic security because of Taiwans vital role in the global semiconductor industry, as the island is responsible for around 90% of the worlds most advanced computer chips, according to a 2021 industry report by Boston Consulting Group. The bulk of that comes down to TSMC, which alone accounts for 55% of the global chip manufacturing market.

Buffett insisted during his shareholder meeting that TSMC remains marvelous and among the best well-managed companies in the world, but suggested that the geopolitical concerns are starting to become an insurmountable barrier to doing business in the country: I dont like its location, he said on Saturday.

Japan, meanwhile, might represent a safer and potentially lucrative investment target for Buffett. The billionaire investor made his second-ever trip to Japan in April to explore new business opportunities in the country, during which revealed to have increased his investments in several of Japans top trading firms. Investors called the foray a stamp of approval for more money to keep flowing into Japan on the promise the country can guarantee strong returns.

During his trip last month, Buffett spoke individually with all of Japans trading houseslarge Japanese investment firms known locally as sogo shosha that hold large and diverse international portfoliosreportedly inviting executives to discuss strengthening relationships in his hotel room suite over glasses of Coca-Cola. Bosses at Berkshire Hathaway reiterated during the shareholder meeting over the weekend that one of the trips goals was to increase mutual understanding between U.S. investors and Japan ahead of more business deals in the near future.

Warren, when you went over there, it was to build the trust with these Japanese companies because we do hope theres long-term opportunities, but fundamentally, as you highlighted, theyre an incredible, theyve been a very good investment, Greg Abel, Berkshire Hathaways vice-chairman for noninsurance operations and Buffetts designated likely successor as the companys next CEO, said during the meeting.

In part because of Japans extremely low interest rates compared to the U.S., Buffett is far from the only major U.S. investor to start looking into setting up shop in the country. Lazard Asset Management, a New York-based firm with nearly $200 billion under management worldwide, wrote in an April report that Japans economy is the healthiest it has been in the past 40 years, adding that the Japanese Yens significant weakening over the last decade has put Japan into its most cost-competitive position to attract investment since the 1970s.

Ken Griffins $54 billion hedge fund firm Citadel is reportedly looking to reopen its Tokyo office sometime this year after shuttering it over a decade ago due to the financial crisis, the Financial Times wrote in March, while last month billionaire investor and New York Mets owner Steve Cohen announced his hedge fund Point72 was looking to grow its Japanese staff by 20%, with a goal of creating the next generation of investors in the country.

In January, activist fund Elliott Management became a top shareholder in Dai Nippon Printing, a 146-year old Japanese technology giant, after spending months quietly increasing its investment. The companys stock has since surged 44% year-to-date, and in March announced the largest share buyback in its history worth 300 billion Japanese Yen, over $2 billion, a decision Elliott commended in a statement, saying it demonstrated Dai Nippon Printings commitment to addressing the Companys undervaluation.

The Solana Saga is here. Should you spend $1,000 on the newest crypto smartphone?

In the mid-aughts, Anatoly Yakovenko, a cofounder of the blockchain Solana, imagined a future where he could wield a handheld computer. Little did he know that, three years later, Apple would release the first iPhone.

Its crazy, right, how fast that can happen? Yakovenko, wearing a black T-shirt and baseball cap, said to a rapt audience in New York City last June. But, he added, That can happen in crypto.

Arguing that its time for crypto to go mobile, he announced that he and his team were developing the Saga, a Web3 smartphone slated to come out in 2023. As of Monday, the phone is finally available for the wider public.

This isnt the first crypto smartphone to hit the market. Will it help onboard the next billion users, a refrain Web3 enthusiasts use when talking about how to best evangelize crypto? Or is it a niche offering best reserved for diehard crypto fans? Fortune spent five days with the Saga. Heres what we thought.

Technically speaking

At its core, the Saga, which retails for $1,000, is a sleek Android smartphone.

Its technical specifications rival that of other phones in the same price tier. Built by OSOM, a smartphone startup, it comes with 512 gigabytes of memory, 12 gigabytes of RAM, and a Snapdragon 8+ Gen1 processor.

Unsurprisingly, the Saga was responsive, quick, and it felt seamless to jump between different applications. The photos came out well, and the battery life lasted longer than a day. Compared with a basic 2019 Android smartphone used by Fortune reporter Ben Weiss, it was light years ahead.

That being said, its specifications dont fully measure up to other phones near the $1,000 range. Googles flagship model, Pixel Pro, retails at $1,099 for 512 gigabytes of memory. It has the same amount of RAM as the Saga, but the screen has a higher resolution, and its camera has an additional ultra-wide and telephoto lens compared with Sagas dual-lense ultra-wide lens.

For the layuser, though, the Saga is a more-than-powerful-enough phone that can take quality photos and provide a similar experience (often at a lower price point) to top devices on the market.

Seed phrase security

But the Saga isnt just a premium smartphone. Its selling point is that its a Web3 smartphone.

Baked into each and every device is the Seed Vault, what Yakovenko calls a secure way to store seed phrases, or master passwords, to crypto wallets. The seed phrase lives outside the phones Android operating system, according to Solana Mobile, a subsidiary of Solana Labs. Any application that prompts a user to authorize a transaction needs to go through gated software.

This boils down to a complicated setup process that includes fingerprint scanning, a pin code, and a prompt to manually write down the 24-word seed phrase on a piece of paper included within the phones packaging. For newcomers to Web3, its confusing, but for those with tens of thousands of dollars in crypto, the security is probably worth it.

The other major selling point of the Saga is its decentralized application marketplace, or dApp store, which Yakavenko has positioned as an eventual competitor to Apples or Googles. As opposed to the tech behemoths, Solana Mobile says that it doesnt take a cut of developers sales.

Solanas dApp store doesnt take a commission on apps sold on its marketplace, says Yakovenko.

Ben WeissFortune

When Fortune tested the smartphone, there were 21 dApps for download, with more on the way, says Yakovenko. We were able to mint an NFT of a selfie, play a racing game, and send NFT stickers to the founder of Dialect, a Web3 messaging app. Its one of the more seamless Web3 experiences out there. However, it wasnt without its bugs, something other outlets have also documented. (Yakovenko said he and his team are moving as fast as they can to resolve them.) Alpha League Racing, the racing game, would open only sporadically, and at one point when the phone connected to a new WiFi network, the dApp store was unusable.

This particular bug is a known edge case impacting a very small number of Saga users with certain WiFi router models, said a spokesperson for Solana Mobile. While we have identified temporary remediation steps, we have been working on a permanent fix.

Ultimately, for those who live and breathe crypto, the phone allows them to further integrate Web3 into their every day. But for crypto newcomers, the complicated setup process and bugs make the phones Web3 features intimidating.

Shooting in the middle

Yakovenko is clear that, at least at first, the target market for the Saga isnt the average smartphone user. I think its going to be really hard to get to hundreds of millions, tens of millions of users, he told Fortune. If we can show traction with ten, twenty thousand users, thats enough of a distribution channel.

However, the very fact that Solana Labs has invested in a smartphonea piece of general consumer techimplies that theres a vision to sell Web3 to the crypto-naive. And some observers are dubious of its general appeal.

If its not differentiated by anything else than this very niche feature set thats unique to already being a crypto nerd, then Im very skeptical that this would be a way to get people to start using it, Hubert Palan, the founder and CEO of Productboard, which makes software for product developers, told Fortune.

Philip Shoemaker, who used to work on Apples app store and is now the executive director of the Web3 nonprofit Identity.com, is similarly skeptical. The Sagas features arent fully a hit for either crypto enthusiasts or laypeople, he said. The smartphone currently only supports Solana, not other blockchains. (Yakokvenko says there are plans to make other blockchains compatible with the Saga.) And it doesnt have the bells and whistles of other premium smartphones on the market. Right now, theyre just shooting in the middle, he told Fortune.

Anthony Georgiades, a general partner at technology fund Innovating Capital, is more optimistic. The security features of the phone, including the Seed Vault, make it similar to a hardware wallet but with more capabilities thanks to the dApp store and its use as a phone, he said. That, plus the association with the Solana brand name, makes him believe it has a chance to succeed with Web3 natives, although he has doubts about broader adoption. It enables you to interact with the Solana ecosystem directly, in a secure and trustless way, but to also create wallets and store keys in a very seamless, intuitive way, Georgiades told Fortune.

The appeal to a smaller market forms the foundation of Yakovenkos plan for the Saga, which he has previously called a moonshot. Whether through rave reviews of the smartphone or the emergence of a popular crypto application, he hopes more and more everyday consumers flock to his product. And perhaps its the lattera killer app that convinces the next billion users to switch over to Web3that will finally tilt the balance.

Either one of these attempts succeeds, Yakavenko concluded in an interview with Fortune, or crypto as a whole industry just never breaks out into the general consumer public.

Life advice from Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger

Legendary investing duo Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger take the stage every year at Berkshire Hathaways annual shareholder meeting in Omaha to share their investing advice and other wisdom, including how to live a good life, with thousands of fans. Buffett, 92, and Munger, 99, have led one of the worlds most profitable companies for nearly six decades, and thats perhaps why their philosophy about achieving personal and professional success rings true for a lot of people.

On Saturday, the two investors were asked a number of questions during the Q&A session of the shareholder meeting about how to make sound decisions, such as one about how to avoid making mistakes in life and business.

You should write your obituary and then try to figure out how to live up to it, Buffett said in response. Its not that complicated.

The two billionaires also weighed in on how to chase successand an important part of it is keeping away from toxic people.

The great lesson of life is get them the hell out of your lifeand do it fast, Munger said of people who are a bad influence. But thats not all: He advised people to also be prudent with money and always be open to learning throughout their lives.

Its so simple to spend less than you earn, and invest shrewdly, and avoid toxic people and toxic activities, and try and keep learning all your life, and do a lot of deferred gratification. If you do all those things, you are almost certain to succeed. If you dont, youre going to need a lot of luck.

Buffett agreed with Munger, and added that cutting toxic people out should be done tactfully. But while distancing from toxic influences is important, the Oracle of Omaha warned against vilifying people. He said that burning bridges would lead to a worse outcome: having no friends at all.

Ive never known anybody that was basically kind that died without friends, Buffett said. And Ive known plenty of people with money that have died without friends.

Berkshire Hathaway: 2023 and beyond

Over time, Berkshire has built a reputation as a robust business. It is seen as a bellwether for economic health because of its wide range of holdings, from insurance to utilities to retail. In a shareholders letter in March, Buffett said the companys shareholders have earned a return of 3,787,464% over the 58 years that its existed.

Berkshire recorded an operating profit, which exclude investments, of $8 billion for the last quarter, up 13% from the previous year. Even though the companys results showed an increase from 2022, Buffett generally felt pessimistic about where the economy was headed.

The majority of our businesses will report lower earnings this year than last year, Buffett said, cautioning that the U.S. economys incredible period may be coming to an end. Munger added that some types of investors should get used to making less money.

But billion-dollar conglomerates may still fare well in these volatile times. Buffett said that rising interest rates and a strong insurance market will help pull the company up in 2023.

During the meeting, Buffett also told investors about his successor as Berkshires CEOGreg Abel, who is currently vice-chairman for its non-insurance operations. Buffett said he was 100% comfortable with Abel taking the reins after him and that Berkshire was lucky to have him.

Greg understands capital allocation as well as I do, Buffett said.