Author: openjargon

• Tatyana Bakalchuk is Russia's richest woman with an estimated net worth of $7.4 billion.
• She founded e-commerce retailer Wildberries, Russia's version of Amazon that sells a range of items.
• Bakalchuk is developing a payment platform to bolster Russia's economy amid international sanctions.

In 2004, Tatyana Bakalchuk spent $700 to create a website for Wildberries, an e-commerce business she started out of her Moscow apartment while on maternity leave.

Today, Wildberries is considered the Russian equivalent of Amazon, a booming online retailer that earned $6 billion in revenue in 2023, and Bakalchuk is Russia's richest woman, Bloomberg reported.

Yet, despite her immense wealth, Bakalchuk, 48, keeps a low profile and apparently lives modestly — she reportedly doesn't own a home, choosing to rent instead.

Here's how Bakalchuk makes and spends her fortune.

Tatyana Bakalchuk is worth an estimated $7.4 billion, Forbes reported, making her Russia's richest woman.

Bakalchuk was born in the Moscow Oblast region in 1975 and studied at the Kolomna State Pedagogical Institute, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

She and her husband, IT entrepreneur Vladislav Bakalchuk, have seven children.

She founded the e-commerce retailer Wildberries in 2004 while on maternity leave from her job as an English teacher.

Wildberries started as a small venture reselling clothes from Otto, a German retail company. Bakalchuk told Bloomberg in 2018 that she used to make deliveries herself in the company's early days.

"At first, I did everything myself, collecting the goods and taking them to customers on the other side of Moscow by subway or bus," she said.

As the business grew, Bakalchuk began hiring delivery workers and renting space to store more inventory.

Russian bodybuilder Sergei Anufriev invested in Wildberries in 2006, Bloomberg reported. Bakalchuk owns 99% of the company, and her husband owns 1%.

In 2020, The Bell reported Vladislav Bakalchuk earned $5 million from selling stock in an internet provider, raising questions about Bakalchuk's status as a self-made billionaire. Wildberries representatives told the outlet that the money was not involved in starting Wildberries.

In 2023, Wildberries earned $6 billion in revenue with a gross merchandise volume of $27.8 billion.

Wildberries stocks items from over 60,000 brands, selling a range of products including clothes, electronics, and housewares, according to Bloomberg's Billionaires Index.

The retailer launched in Europe in 2021, expanding into Germany, Italy, Spain, and France, The Moscow Times reported.

Despite her billionaire status, Bakalchuk keeps a low profile and doesn't own a home.

In a 2018 interview with AFP, Bakalchuk described herself as "introverted."

Unlike other billionaires who live in sprawling mansions, Bakalchuk rents instead of owning a home, Bloomberg reported.

Bakalchuk's latest venture will involve building an alternative payment platform to help bolster Russia's economy amid international sanctions.

The Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, known as SWIFT, banned seven Russian banks in 2022 following Russia's invasion of Ukraine. In a joint statement condemning the invasion, members of the European Commission wrote that the ban would "ensure that these banks are disconnected from the international financial system and harm their ability to operate globally."

In June, Bloomberg reported that Bakalchuk will work with advertising operator Russ Group on developing a new digital trading platform as an alternative to SWIFT. The project will be overseen by Maxim Oreshkin, Russia's former minister of economic development, who was handpicked for the task by Russian President Vladimir Putin.

• Derek Edwards, 28 moved to Miami from Denver to be closer to the Caribbean.
• Life in the mountains didn't suit him, plus the community wasn't as diverse as he had wanted.
• He loves Florida's warm weather and beach access even though it's a little pricier to live there.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Derek Edwards, a 28-year-old theology teacher and soccer coach who moved from Denver to Miami this month. The conversation was edited for length and clarity.

I ended up enjoying Denver a lot more than I thought I would. I had planned to stay there for a year or two, and ended up staying for three years.

I went in with not a lot of expectations other than that it's close to the mountains and that there's lots of outdoor stuff to do.

What was interesting was this dream of always going out to the mountains and traveling around — I didn't actually go to the mountains that often. I ended up just sticking mostly to the city of Denver and getting to know what Denver was like.

It's such a job to plan and drive out into the mountains — young people who move to Denver realize they won't be able to do it as often as they wish. There's traffic, and life gets crazy and busy.

Personally, I kind of forced that personality on myself. I'm not really that. But I do know that a lot of people who are super-adventurous explorers probably make more time than I did to get out to the mountains during the weekend.

I grew up in a rural town in central Wisconsin — the closest big city would be Wausau.

When COVID hit, I ended up teaching in Wisconsin and loving it. A friend of mine moved out to Colorado for a nursing job, and I knew that I didn't want to stay in Wisconsin.

I ended up moving to Colorado in 2021 and found a teaching job out there, but I also just needed space to recollect myself and figure out what my next steps and goals were.

I wanted to be closer to big Caribbean communities

I went to college at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse, and I took a few courses about international relationships. I particularly had an interest in the situation in Haiti and what was going on there.

I ended up going on a service trip in college for a week, and during the summers I would continue to go back to Haiti. The organization I worked with, Missionaries of the Poor, was based out of Jamaica, so I ended up going to Jamaica as well. I lived in Jamaica for a year doing missionary service.

Miami was my layover spot every time I went to Haiti or Jamaica. I probably ended up going about 12 times or so. A lot of them were long layovers, so I would get out and explore the city a bit — and got lost a couple of times on the transit system.

It was during those times that I encountered the Haitian community in Fort Lauderdale and Miami. I also really loved the soccer culture that exists here — especially with Messi in town now.

I went to an Inter Miami soccer game with a friend last July, and we explored the city for 48 hours.

I had this deep desire to figure out what I'm supposed to do with the time I spent in Haiti and Jamaica, and how can I get connected more intentionally in those communities here in the US.

Denver does have a very small Caribbean community, but it didn't really influence the culture, and it was really hard to get connected there.

So I decided that Miami was the perfect place to explore that because it has the highest population, besides New York City, of Caribbean migrants. So that was a major factor.

Colorado was just this transition phase.

I'm almost in my 30s, I'm not getting younger. Now is the time to make a change if I'm going to do it again.

I ended up landing this job at a mostly Haitian-American school, and I decided, "If I'm going to explore this, I'm going to do it now and give it a shot."

Florida's warm weather is a plus, but things are more expensive

Part of the reason I moved away from Wisconsin was because I couldn't handle the cold. Twenty-something years was enough for me.

I lived in Jamaica through a winter and thought, "Wow, this is crazy." I love the tropical weather, being close to the beach. It's been in the 80s and really nice here in Miami, and the beach is close by. It's just beautiful.

The day I moved into my apartment, it was a super crazy day of rain and I was in the thick of it. I was walking through the parking lot with water up to my shins carrying boxes that were just drenched. My apartment was soaked.

Those videos on the news about what was going on in Miami, I was moving in during — that was kind of discouraging at first and it made the move really difficult. But now it's a week later, and I'm walking outside in 85 degrees and sunny.

Another guy I knew was moving from Philadelphia around the same time that I was, and we ended up looking mostly online with a price range of ideally no more than $1,300 per person.

We found an apartment complex in Miami Gardens that was pretty much about that price. It's a pretty decent apartment complex. It's probably not the ideal place, but it's within our budget and close to our jobs so we went with what worked for us.

It's pretty over my comfort zone coming from paying $800 a month for a room in an entire house in Denver.

Everything is kind of expensive everywhere, but I have noticed that groceries are more expensive here. I have a lot of allergies, so when I go grocery shopping, sometimes I go to Whole Foods. A lot of those foods that I need are quite a bit more expensive here than what I was used to in Denver, so that's been a little annoying thing too.

Gas is pretty comparable, except in Miami Beach. I've been a couple of times and it's crazy to see how gas is an entire dollar more at the beach than it is in Miami — so I just won't get gas in Miami Beach.

I already feel welcome in Miami

I'm still in the middle of figuring out switching over my car and insurance and title and all that. It's more complicated here than it was in Colorado because there are a lot of Florida-specific laws and things to navigate.

I really love the diversity. It's interesting because I kind of feel like the minority sometimes, which I probably am, at least in the neighborhood I live in, but it doesn't make me feel out of place. I actually really appreciate that.

People have been really warm and welcoming. I don't know if that's everyone's experience here, but at least it was for me, even more so than Denver.

The first week here was kind of chaotic with the weather. But now as it's settled down, I've really come to enjoy the last few days.

I'm about 10 miles from the beach. Just in case I don't stay in Florida forever, I'm going to go to the beach as much as I can.

Master chef and restaurateur Paul Liebrandt rates 11 fine-dining scenes in movies and television, such as "The Bear," for realism.

Liebrandt breaks down the reality of running a fine-dining restaurant for three episodes of "The Bear," starring Jeremy Allen White and Ayo Edebiri, such as kitchen jargon used in the kitchen, the creation and execution of dishes, and the high-stress environment in the kitchen often depicted in popular culture. He further explains fine-dining culture — from food critics to the impact of social media — as seen in the food critic scene in both "Ratatouille" and "Chef," with Jon Favreau; the pursuit to receive three Michelin stars in "Burnt," starring Bradley Cooper; and how social media has shaped the fine dining experience in "The Menu," with Anya Taylor-Joy and Ralph Fiennes. He also explains cooking and plating techniques, along with the evolution of French cuisine, via the molecular gastronomy scene in "The Hundred-Foot Journey," with Helen Mirren; the use of foie gras in "Cook Up a Storm"; the cooking competition scene "Food Wars!: Shokugeki no Soma," and the omelet-making scene at Le Cordon Bleu in "Julie & Julia," starring Meryl Streep as Julia Child.  

Liebrandt has been a chef for over 25 years and owned the two-Michelin-starred restaurant Corton in New York City. He also previously worked at the New York restaurants Atlas, Gilt, and Papillon. His book "To the Bone" is part cookbook and part memoir of his culinary experiences. 

You can follow Paul here:

https://www.paulliebrandt.com/ 

https://www.instagram.com/paulliebrandt/?hl=en 

• Trump is now free to rail against hush-money trial witnesses and his jury, the trial judge ruled.
• He and his lawyers remain barred indefinitely from identifying individual jurors.
• Justice Juan Merchan preserved Trump's gag on commenting about court staff, family until sentencing.

Donald Trump is free to rail away at hush-money trial witnesses and his jury, the trial judge ruled on Tuesday — but he still can't refer to jurors by name.

Key prosecution witness Michael Cohen showed zero concern when told of the gag lift.

"Good," he told Business Insider, his tone defiant.

"For the past 6 years, Donald and acolytes have been making constant negative statements about me. Donald's failed strategy of discrediting me so that he can avoid accountability didn't work then and won't work now."

Under a five-page order by New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan, the former president remains barred indefinitely from revealing juror identities.

Merchan also kept in place Trump's gag on statements attacking court staff and family members, but that will be lifted after Trump's July 11 sentencing.

Trump has fought the gag unsuccessfully, on Constitutional free-speech grounds, since it was imposed in March, two weeks before the start of a trial that resulted in the first criminal conviction of a former president.

After the May 30 conviction, Trump's lawyers added a second strategy, challenging the gag as not only unconstitutional but also moot.

Prosecutors did not oppose lifting Trump's gag on trash-talking witnesses, but fought allowing him to attack jurors, or court and prosecution staffers and their families.

Lawyers for Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg noted that so long as sentencing is still pending, proceedings have not yet concluded.

However, "the trial portion of these proceedings ended when the verdict was rendered, and the jury discharged," Merchan wrote.

"While it would be this court's strong preference to extend those protections, the court cannot do so," when it comes to the jury, Merchan wrote.

"Nonetheless, there is ample evidence to justify continued concern for the jurors," he added, saying that his March 7 protective order barring the release of juror identities remains in effect "until further order of this Court."

That order prohibits disclosure of the names and addresses of any prospective or sworn juror.

Trump's jurors have remained anonymous, and have been identified in public only by a three-digit number. Only he, his lawyers, prosecutors, and court staff know who they are.

Violating a court order can result in contempt-of-court sanctions that include fines and incarceration.

• CEOs are often known for having extreme sleep schedules. One even rises at 3:30 a.m. daily.
• Stress management methods can range from strict workouts to long hours of meditation.
• "It's what makes me superhuman," a leader said of his morning routine. 

Running a company is a stressful job, especially if you're running one of the biggest firms in the world.

That high stress can lead to some intense and unconventional daily habits. Here are some of the most unusual routines of CEOs:

1. Waking up at 3:30 a.m. and launching into a 90-minute workout

CEOs are known for waking up early: Tim Cook and Richard Branson both rise around 5 a.m.

But Josh York, the 40-year-old CEO of in-home personal training company Gymguyz, takes it further and starts his mornings at 3:29 a.m., he told Fortune.

After having a cold rinse in the shower, he launches into an hour-and-a-half workout followed by a three-minute ice bath.

"It's what makes me superhuman," he told the outlet.

2. Bob Iger prefers to work out in a dark room with the TV on mute

The CEO of Disney works out first thing in the morning in a darkened room, he says in his MasterClass on 'Using your time effectively.'

He keeps a TV on silent during his workout so he can watch it against the backdrop of his own choice of music.

"It's my most creative time in many ways," Iger said.

3. A teaspoon of Icelandic cod liver oil washed down with black coffee to start the day

Mikael Berner, CEO of email software company Edison Software, starts his day with a dose of cod liver oil, a source of omega-3 fatty acids, vitamin A, and vitamin D.

It's meant to have benefits like promoting heart health and benefiting cells. Experts warn against taking more than one tablespoon daily to avoid consuming too much vitamin A.

4. Or, if you're Elon Musk, your morning routine includes eating a doughnut

Tesla CEO Elon Musk opts for a sugary start to the day.

A post on X declared that sugar is poison. Musk replied, "I eat a donut every morning. I'm still alive."

5. Mark Zuckerberg's diet requires eating 4,000 calories a day

The Meta CEO previously said on Threads that he eats roughly 4,000 calories to offset his intensive MMA and jiujitsu training.

Another popular diet with successful CEOs is only eating within specific time windows — intermittent fasting.

6. Taking an afternoon nap in the office

Robin Zeng, whose role as leader of the world's largest EV battery manufacturing firm CATL makes him known as China's "Battery King," takes a daily nap at noon in the office, according to an interview with the FT.

Some experts recommend short naps of between 20 and 30 minutes to improve focus and combat fatigue.

7. Two hours of meditation a day

Jack Dorsey, who runs financial services company Block, adhered to a strict wellness schedule that allowed him "just to stay above water," when he was also CEO of Twitter. Each day involved walking five miles, meditating for two hours, and only eating one meal.

Dorsey is a big proponent of mediation. For his birthday in 2018, he took part in a 10-day silent Vipassana meditation retreat where he meditated for nearly 17 hours daily.

"It's extremely painful and demanding physical and mental work," he said on a thread on Twitter at the time.

8. "Eyes-open" meditation

Another fan of meditation is Gwyneth Paltrow, CEO of wellness brand Goop.

She advocates "eyes-open" meditation, which involves being mindful at any moment in everyday life.

"Once you learn how to do eyes-open meditation — something you can literally incorporate at any time — you can be engaged with the world but still very connected to yourself," said previously told Business Insider. "I rely on it to feel more whole."

9. When faced with a tough problem, Jeff Bezos engages in some mind-wandering

The former Amazon CEO would hold meetings that lasted an undetermined amount of time. He used this time to let his mind wander in order to come up with creative ideas.

"When I sit down at a meeting, I don't know how long the meeting is going to take," Bezos told the Lex Fridman Podcast in December, "the reality is we may have to wander for a long time.

"Real invention, real lateral thinking that requires wandering," he said.

Letting your mind wander may seem like an inefficient use of time, but some psychologists believe it helps increase creativity and improve working memory.

10. A massage just before midnight

If reading a book and meditating aren't relaxing enough, Steven Barlett, a former CEO and founder famed for his Diary of a CEO podcast, recommends an 11 p.m. massage.

"I often get massages in the evening — it sounds crazy, but usually my masseuse comes over at 11 p.m," he told The Telegraph.

11. A more unusual habit among CEOs, Tobias Lutke says he never works later than 5:30 p.m.

While some CEOs brag about their long hours in the office and spending nights sleeping on the office floor, Shopify CEO Tobias Lutke previously said he never works later than 5:30 p.m.

"The only times I worked more than 40 hours in a week was when I had the burning desire to do so. I need 8ish hours of sleep a night," he said in a thread on Twitter, now X.

12. Bernard Arnault spends his weekends visiting LVMH-owned stores

The 75-year-old CEO and chairman of retail empire LVMH doesn't sleep in on Saturday mornings.

Instead, Arnault and his entourage take the time to visit the stores of any one of the several brands that LVMH owns. He's not there to shop but to point out any issues that might depart from his vision for the company, according to Bloomberg.

Celine, Louis Vuitton, Christian Dior, and Tiffany & Co. are just a few of the luxury brands under LVMH's umbrella. His sons told Bloomberg that Arnault's notes can be extremely detailed.

"He made a bunch of comments that were very, very detail-oriented," Alexandre Arnault said. "Things that you wouldn't typically notice, but once you've seen tens of thousands of stores over the years, I think it's what comes to your mind immediately."

• Ex-Meta VP of Product Ami Vora explained how she landed a temp job at Facebook.
• Vora offered to buy fancy coffee for a Facebook employee if they introduced her to the office.
• She said she was offered a temporary PR position and worked her way up to full-time.

Before Ami Vora became a Meta VP, she worked as a temporary employee in Facebook's PR department and slept on couches.

Vora spoke about how she got her first job at Facebook on an episode of "Lenny's Podcast" published Sunday. The ex-Meta exec ended up becoming VP of product at Facebook, and VP of product and design at WhatsApp.

But when she first started, she just wanted a seat at the table — and that meant doing a bit of creative networking.

"I knew that what I wanted to do was like be involved in all the wild stuff happening in Silicon Valley in the mid 2000's," Vora said.

Vora said she quit her job and traveled around the world before moving to New York and living an "extremely blissful lifestyle." Vora worked at Microsoft for three years as a product manager before leaving, according to her LinkedIn.

While her time unemployed was some of the best of her life, she said eventually she needed a job — and she wanted it to be at Facebook.

Vora said that in 2007, people considered Facebook as more important than their car. She described it as a "magical product" and said it was the way many people connected to the world.

Vora wrote in a post on Lean In that none of the jobs on the Facebook career page made sense for her at the time. While she said she looked at other companies and sent some applications, she "couldn't get Facebook's mission and energy" out of her mind.

So she didn't give up. The ex-Meta executive said she knew some people at Facebook and decided to fly out to its Palo Alto headquarters. Vora managed to work out an arrangement with one of the employees she knew: she would buy them "fancy coffee" at a downtown Palo Alto café if they took her around the office and introduced her to people.

"So everyone I met I said, 'Hey I'm Ami I really want to work here. I'll do whatever you need,'" Vora said in the podcast.

The ex-Meta executive admitted in her post on Lean In that she was nervous once she arrived and "paced around outside the Facebook building." She spent the day trying to initiate a conversation with anyone who would speak with her, she wrote in the post.

Vora said she only received one call from the head of PR after the day she spent at Facebook and they gave her several reasons why they couldn't hire her, including her lack of experience and current headcount. But they happened to need someone to review press releases so they offered her a temporary job in the department.

"This wasn't exactly what I'd been hoping for," Vora wrote in her post. "But I knew that I was passionate about the work and the company, so once again I flew from New York to San Francisco."

Vora said she took the offer and moved out to California and slept on couches. She said in her post on Lean In that she was offered a full time job a few months later.

"Eventually, they hired me full time and I didn't look back," Vora said in the interview.

Vora would later become a director at Instagram, VP of product at Facebook, and VP of product and design at Whatsapp, according to her LinkedIn. She left in 2022 after spending over 15 years at the company and became the chief product officer at Faire, an online wholesale marketplace.

• Did Apple and Meta discuss an AI deal? Or is there no AI deal happening between Apple and Meta?
• Yes! Probably. Maybe.
• You can get at the real answer by parsing two contradictory reports from The Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg.

News: Apple has talked to Meta, its fierce rival, about an AI deal.

Also news: Apple is not talking to Meta about an AI deal, because Meta is a fierce rival.

Which one of these stories is true? Technically, it's possible for both of them to be correct.

My hunch, though, is that the second one is truthier: Apple and Meta aren't doing anything together on AI — or anything else — anytime soon.

Some background: On Sunday, The Wall Street Journal published a report that said Meta and Apple have "held discussions" about connecting Apple's devices to Meta's AI engine, similar to a deal it has already struck with OpenAI.

The key here is the tense: The WSJ said the two companies had talked, which is pretty noteworthy, given that they've been fighting for years. But the paper didn't give any sense of whether those talks were ongoing or headed anywhere.

Then on Monday, Bloomberg reported its own version of the story: Yes, the two companies had talked — but that was months ago, and nothing's happening or going to happen.

Not only that, but people at Tim Cook's company wanted to be clear about their stance re: Mark Zuckerberg's operation, telling Bloomberg (anonymously) that Apple won't work with Meta "in part because it doesn't see that company's privacy practices as stringent enough." Zing!

It's not impossible to walk back that messaging. Apple's clear strategy here is to act as a gatekeeper between its users and various AI companies. And it's possible that at some point Meta will be one of those companies, in the same way that Apple customers use iPhones to access Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp.

Apple reps haven't responded to a request for comment, and Meta declined to comment. But Yann LeCun, Meta's chief AI scientist, reposted the Bloomberg story to Threads Tuesday and quipped, "Their loss."

So that's the what-does-it-all mean angle satisfied: There's probably not a lot there.

But if you're a person who gets a kick out of feuds (raises hand), then this story has some bonus pettiness: Not only do we get to watch Apple people (anonymously) dump on Meta people, we get to watch the normally civil tech press dump on each other's reporting. Fun!