Journal

Alex Lidow, scion of an engineering dynasty, thinks the essential material at the heart of the tech industry needs to change.

In 1977, when he was 22 years old, inventor Alex Lidow had the sort of eureka moment most techies would kill for. While in graduate school at Stanford, Lidow co-invented, along with Thomas Herman, a type of device called the HEXFET power MOSFET that would make his family’s old company, International Rectifier, more than $930 million in royalties. And it turned Lidow’s grandfather, a Lithuanian Holocaust survivor, and his father, who fled Berlin in 1937, into important players in the hardware industry.

Read Full Story

Looking for a raise? No surprise that people in tech jobs saw their salaries increase this year, but so did baristas, cooks, and cashiers.

Even though the annual review has come under attack for its inability to affect positive change, the yearly sit-down is often accompanied by a salary increase at most companies, if the employee merits a pay bump.

Read Full Story

As Empire, Fox’s high-octane smash, returns for its second season, creator and executive producer Lee Daniels explains why the show resonates with viewers and what’s happening below the surface.

Fast Company: Empire‘s first-season finale in March was the highest-rated for a new series in the past 10 years. How do you approach writing a show that has connected with so many people?

Read Full Story

Storehouse, a mobile publishing network by an ex-Apple designer, has decided that followers create pandering, and pandering ruins everything.

When the iPad app Storehouse launched in early 2014—designed as a way to publish brief, uniquely laid out, photo-driven stories with the world—it operated with all of the flourish you’d expect an app led by an ex-Apple designer to have. The company was founded by Mark Kawano, who had worked on iPhoto and served as Apple’s user experience evangelist before founding his company, and it showed.

Read Full Story

You can lead a kid to healthier foods, but you can’t make him take a bite.

Ever since the introduction of mandatory fruits and vegetables for schoolchildren, kids have eaten less of them than before. The Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act, introduced in 2010 and in effect from last year, forces schoolchildren to take a piece of fruit or a vegetable and put it on their lunch tray. What it does’t do is force them to eat it. A new study shows that kids toss their apples into the trash before they even take a place at a table.

Read Full Story

The Pope’s U.S. visit later this week is disrupting life in and around Philadelphia—including postal deliveries.

Seldom do two Western religions clash quite this directly. But for some devotees of the Church of Cupertino, this weekend’s Papal visit to the East Coast could bring some devastating news: Your new iPhone might take a few extra days to get to you.

Read Full Story

Uber launched a long-distance carpooling option for commuters in Chengdu, China.

Now that China’s leading ride-hailing company, Didi Kuaidi, has forged a partnership with Lyft, Uber is facing pressure to step up its game in the region. Though Uber has already invested about $1 billion in the Chinese market—and has seen significant growth there, with its Chinese drivers serving about 1 million rides per day—Lyft’s new alliance could hamper the company’s progress, since Didi Kuaidi already looms large over Uber in China.

Read Full Story

At last, an app-savvy wearable for your wrist that no sane person would describe as “chunky.”

Read enough reviews of smartwatches, and you may notice a theme:

Read Full Story

Martin Winterkorn, who has been Volkswagen’s CEO since 2007, stepped down from his position on Wednesday.

As Pope Francis prepared to speak on Capitol Hill in favor of climate change reform, Volkswagen CEO Martin Winterkorn announced his untimely resignation. The decision came after last week’s revelations by the Environmental Protection Agency that the German automaker had covertly installed a “defeat device” that switched on during emissions tests, making the vehicles appear low-emission. According to Volkswagen, the technology was installed in 11 million cars going back as far as 2009.

Read Full Story

In the future, everyone will have 15 haters.