The billionaire who shocked a graduating class

In an astonishing commencement address, billionaire Robert F. Smith announced  last  Sunday that he and his family will pay off  student debt  for the entire 2019 graduating class at Morehouse College, prompting cheers and more than a few tears from shocked listeners to his commencement speech.

News of his generosity quickly went viral, but unlike other high-profile billionaires Smith has a bit less name recognition.

Smith, who has a net worth of about $5 billion according to Forbes , is the chairman and CEO of Vista Equity Partners, a private equity group he founded in 2000 that specializes in investing in software companies. Vista is a big deal in the world of software investing, currently managing about $46 billion in investments with a portfolio of more than 50 software companies that employ over 60,000 people around the world.

Before he earned his billions, the 56-year-old from Colorado went to Cornell for his undergraduate degree, earning a BS in chemical engineering, followed by an MBA from Columbia Business School. He went on to work first at Kraft General Foods, then at Goldman Sachs before founding his own investment firm.

Though Smith’s gift to the 2019 graduates of Morehouse College may be his most eye-catching philanthropic effort, it isn’t his first. In 2017,  he joined the Giving Pledge, a group of ultra-wealthy individuals — including Bill and Melinda Gates and Warren Buffett — who have publicly committed to giving the majority of their wealth to philanthropy. 

 In addition to his approximately $40 million dollar gift to Morehouse College graduates, Smith announced a $1.5 million gift to the historically African American, all-male college. In 2016, Smith made a $20 million dollar gift to the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington DC. Smith also donated $50 million to the Cornell school of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering.

Smith is also the founding director and President of the Fund II Foundation,  which makes grants related to African American cultural preservation, human rights, environmental conservation, music education and “sustaining the American values of entrepreneurship, empowerment, innovation and security.”

In 2016, Smith became the first African American chairman of New York’s Carnegie Hall, one of the world’s most prestigious concert venues. The billionaire investor also hired Seal and John Legend to perform at his 2015 second wedding to 2010 Playmate of the Year, Hope Dworaczyk. And Smith’s two youngest sons, Hendrix and Legend, are named after guitarist Jimi Hendrix and singer John Legend.

But despite his past generosity, none can quite compete with his gift to the Morehouse Class of 2019. One stunned graduate said, “I was shocked. My heart dropped. We all cried. In the moment it was like a burden had been taken off.”

Article from Time (edited)

You can also watch the video by clicking on the Play Button

On the southern tip of Tierra del Fuego (captions)

You can also watch this video by clicking on the Play Button

Chevy Has A Surprise For You

Know a young driver who's ignoring your pleas to buckle up? Chevrolet suggests you might try to see if they'll listen to a different authority figure: their car.

Chevrolet  is introducing a feature that will temporarily block the auto from shifting into gear if the seat belt isn't buckled. A message will alert the driver to buckle up in order to shift into gear.

After 20 seconds, the vehicle will operate normally.

The feature, which Chevrolet says is an industry first, will come standard in the 2020 models of the Traverse SUV, Malibu sedan and Colorado pickup truck. It will be part of the “Teen Driver” package, which can also be used to set speed alerts and a maximum speed, among other controls, and give parents "report cards" tracking a teen's driving behavior.

Teens have among the lowest rates of seat belt use, with less than 60% of high school students saying they always wear their seat belts as passengers.

Chevrolet safety engineer Tricia Morrow, herself the mother of a teen driver, hopes the feature "will help guide more young drivers to wear their seat belts and encourage positive conversations among teens, their peers and parents."

A similar feature was available for some fleet customers who purchased GM vehicles in the past, but the new teen driver rollout is an industry first for consumer vehicles.

Research from the Highway Loss Data Institute found that Chevy's system of keeping the car in park increased seat belt use by 16%, compared to a vehicle that simply made a warning noise when a seat belt was unbuckled.

However, more recent research from the institute, which is supported by the auto insurance industry, has found improving warning sounds — making the beeping last longer, or even continue indefinitely — could increase seat belt use by more than 30%.

Lead author David Kidd, a senior research scientist at the institute, says the result was a surprise.

"We completely expected that restricting vehicle function in some way ... would be more effective than providing this ongoing beeping," he says.  However, Kidd notes that those who are truly opposed to wearing seat belts might be more likely to be swayed by a car that won't move than a car that won't stop beeping.

This is not the first time the car industry has tried to use technology to improve human behavior.

In the 1970s, when seat belt use was much lower, vehicle manufacturers introduced ignition interlocks — devices to block cars from starting until the driver or front passenger buckled up — to comply with federal safety standards.

People hated them.

"There was so much pushback from consumers that Congress passed a law that drastically limited what the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration could do," Kidd says.

But in the decades since, laws requiring seat belt use have dramatically shifted patterns of behavior; nationwide, seat belt use has increased from about 14% in the ealy 1980s to about 90% today.

And manufacturers are testing out other ways cars can more proactively promote safety. Increasingly, vehicles are being designed not only to protect occupants in a crash, but to prevent crashes from occurring in the first place. For example, an automatic emergency braking system that will avoid striking a pedestrian, or a driver monitoring system that will notice when drivers are distracted or drunk.

From NPR (edited)

Drones and dangerous building maintenance (video)

You can also watch the video by clicking on the Play Button