It's Kombucha Thursday at the Santa Monica headquarters of The Honest Company, which means that groups of young, stylish workers gather at communal tables in a converted toy factory to slurp fashionable fermented tea. Jessica Alba, Hollywood star and company cofounder, sits in the adjacent room. She'll join her troops shortly, but for now she's transfixed by a box of tampons that looks more like it holds an expensive candle than Kotex. "Dope!" she declares, approvingly.
Last week, a Picasso painting called "The Women of Algiers (Version 0)" fetched $179.4 million minutes before a bronze statue by Alberto Giacometti called "Man Pointing" sold for $141.3 million.
The buyers were anonymous, though a recent New York Times article narrowed the potential Picasso buyers down to 50 suspects — some of whom made their fortunes in tech.
Tech titans have a taste for expensive art. We've rounded up some of the biggest purchases here.
Read more... http://www.businessinsider.com/expensive-art-owned-by-tech-billionaires-2015-5?op=1
It may be true that Americans love their guns, but Annie Adjchavanich, curator of the "ARTillery" exhibit at Mesa Contemporary Arts Museum, notes that the fascination with weaponry goes back to the hunting spears painting on cave walls tens of thousands of years ago.
With works by nearly three dozen artists, most from California and Arizona, "ARTillery" explores guns and other sorts of firepower both as physical objects and cultural symbols. Images range from paintings of soldiers and outlaws to an assault rifle gussied up in Hello Kitty pink.
Read more... http://www.azcentral.com/story/entertainment/arts/2015/05/11/artillery-exhibit-explores-gun-imagery-mesa/70956910/
What glass ceiling? The gender gap appears to be closed: At least when it comes to CEO pay.
So far, 21 of the 22 current female CEOs in the Standard & Poor's 500 have reported their latest compensation, including Yahoo (YHOO) CEO Marissa Mayer, defense contractor Lockheed Martin's (LMT) Marillyn Hewson and CEO Carol Meyrowitz of retailer TJX (TJX), and they were paid an average of $18.8 million during their latest fiscal years, according to a USA TODAY analysis of data from S&P Capital IQ and Bespoke Investment Group. That far exceeds the average $12.7 million paid to the 455 current male CEOs in the S&P 500 that have reported compensation data for the same time period.
Read more... http://americasmarkets.usatoday.com/2015/04/30/surprise-women-trump-men-on-ceo-pay/
A Sotheby's employee shows The Graff Vivid Yellow at 100.09 carats, one of the rarest yellow diamonds of its size, which was sold for about $16 million at auction in Geneva, Switzerland, May 13, 2014.
Read more... http://abcnews.go.com/Business/photos/photos-precious-gems-17465746
Eleven minutes of prolonged bidding from telephone buyers preceded the final sale - for much more than its pre-sale estimate of $140m.
The final price of $179.3m (£115m) includes commission of just over 12%.
The sale also featured Alberto Giacometti's life-size sculpture Pointing Man, which set its own record.
It is now the most expensive sculpture sold at auction, after going for $141.3m (£90.6m). Both buyers chose to remain anonymous.
Read more... http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-32700575
For the budding entrepreneur, the path to success is filled with roadblocks. What might seem like surefire strategies often flame out quickly. The challenge of attracting and keeping customers requires extensive research of your market and attention to detail. There may be false starts along the way, but this seven-step process will help you perfect your sales pitch and seal the deal:
Read more... http://www.thesimpledollar.com/perfect-your-sales-pitch-to-convert-more-customers/
