Journal

SHoP Architects help rebuild in Nepal, Instagram doubles down on video, and more updates from our most innovative companies.

SHoP Architects

How can great design make a difference when it comes to natural disasters? That’s what SHoP Architects is hoping to answer this summer, when the New York City–based firm opens the first of 50 earthquake-resistant schools in Nepal, which was devastated last year by an 8.1-magnitude temblor. The not-for-profit Kids of Kathmandu tapped SHoP to build schools that can not only withstand the impact of a quake but also function as meeting points for families in the aftermath. “We didn’t want to do just a pretty design that would get published,” says Kim Holden, a founding principal at SHoP. “We wanted to do something that would actually get built.”

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Sure, founders set a tone. But they aren’t the only ones who shape workplace culture, writes Ideo’s Mollie West.

We all fear the job that looks great on paper and is a nightmare in practice. What makes some companies great to work for and others a disaster? The answer: good workplace culture. It’s the difference between Google and Yahoo, Costco, and the Department of Corrections. Studies have shown that office culture is one of the most revealing indicators of workplace satisfaction. How can companies be intentional about building and nurturing a good workplace culture?

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From one of the founders of Method comes Ripple, a nondairy milk that won’t quite fool you into thinking it comes from cows—but is far better for the planet than the milk that does.

After building Method, the sustainable soap brand, into a $100 million-plus business, cofounder Adam Lowry probably could have retired. Instead, he tackled a new problem: the unsustainability of milk.

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Everybody Wants Some!! picks up not long after where Dazed and Confused leaves off. Here’s how the era determines what lands onscreen.

Richard Linklater is often a man out of time. Whether it’s returning to suburban 1976 in his resin-caked breakthrough, Dazed and Confused, riding around in Model Ts for the 1920s-set Newton Boys, or visiting the near future in the rotoscoped paranoid fantasy, A Scanner Darkly, he’s at home in any era. Clearly, something about bringing a time period to life helps him bring a story to life.

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How the fashion designer mastered the red carpet and gave Brooks Brothers a new look—while building a powerful, globe-spanning brand.

It’s not easy to catch the fashion world off guard. But when Zac Posen announced two years ago that he was signing on as the creative director of women’s wear at Brooks Brothers, one of America’s oldest retailers, he raised more than a few well-groomed eyebrows.

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“Don’t buy into the myth that to sell yourself you need to change who you are,” says one introvert entrepreneur. “Own your traits.”

My family branded me an extrovert early. They saw that I wasn’t shy with strangers but overlooked all the hours I spent alone reading. I tried to live up to their expectations. My first job involved fielding phone calls all day, and spending two or three nights a week at events. My next jobs were equally social. When I started my own business, networking was the primary way I promoted myself.

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Women are much more likely to switch jobs more frequently than men, but it might not be a bad thing for their careers.

Just how much are people job hopping? New LinkedIn data says workers who graduated between 2006 and 2010 have about 2.85 jobs each in the five years after college. Based on data pulled from 3 million U.S. member profiles, LinkedIn found:

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Padmasree Warrior, the U.S. CEO of Shanghai-based electric-car innovator NextEV, is working hard to make cars smarter.

Padmasree Warrior wants to make your car as smart as your computer. After leaving Cisco Systems last fall, she was hired in December to run the U.S. division of Shanghai-based electric-vehicle startup NextEV, a Tesla rival that is working to integrate advanced Internet technology into automobiles. “Machine learning, computer vision, data science—all the things we’ve learned in the consumer Internet space we can now apply to the vehicle,” says Warrior. “I was trying to decide what to do [after Cisco], and I wanted to pick an area where we could apply technology to solve big problems, things with a global impact.”

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Apple’s encryption keys could become its key to one of its most important markets.

The New York Times reported Thursday that Apple’s iBooks Store and iTunes Movies were shut down in China at the request of the government, just six months after opening.

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