Latest news with #Caplan
USA Today
13-07-2025
- Sport
- USA Today
Insider reveals what really happened in the Steelers' George Pickens trade
The Steelers shocked the NFL world when they traded George Pickens to the Cowboys for a third-round pick last May — and new information on the move is still being reported. Many believed that Pittsburgh was willing to put up with Pickens' immature antics for at least the 2025 season — but insider Adam Caplan revealed what really happened behind the scenes. Appearing on Fox Sports Radio last week, Caplan shared some interesting details on the two-month-old Pickens trade — including when the Steelers really decided it was time to part ways: "[The Steelers] made a decision, at the end of the 2024 season, that they knew they were not going to extend George Pickens' contract," Caplan said. "There was no way this would work with Pickens, they felt. And they were going to move him for whatever they could get — the best they could get. And Dallas was very interested, and they made that work." Caplan then argued that the 2025 NFL Draft's solid, but overall underwhelming, receiver class was a major reason behind Pittsburgh's decision to replace Pickens with DK Metcalf: "They had to get somebody to replace Pickens, and they were not gonna wait for the draft," Caplan said. "By the way, the word around the league was: nice receiver draft, not great. And they felt like Metcalf was better than anyone in this draft, and they might be right about that, so they made this move." There were rumors and reports that the Cowboys were interested in acquiring Pickens leading up to the 2025 NFL Draft — but as we all know, a trade wouldn't come to fruition until almost two weeks after the event's conclusion. If the insight is accurate and the Steelers were truly set on trading Pickens after the 2024 season, the motivation to acquire Metcalf before the draft makes sense — but the move still didn't address the WR2 issues that plagued the team last year. For up-to-date Steelers coverage, follow us on X @TheSteelersWire and give our Facebook page a like.
USA Today
08-07-2025
- Sport
- USA Today
Insider provides injury update on Steelers' Darius Slay: 'One of his knees is a concern'
A member of the Steelers' newly re-tooled secondary has received an injury update — as one insider has revealed concerns about one of Darius Slay Jr.'s knees. On Monday's Fox Sports Radio, insider Adam Caplan reported that Slay's knee isn't at 100% — going as far as to claim it could potentially impact how he runs: "As I'm told, one of his knees is a concern," Caplan said. "He actually had arthroscopic surgery on it late in 2023. He's got great length, and he was super fast coming out of Mississippi State. You have to wonder how well he can run. … You never know when a guy's going to lose it, and they could lose it in an instant." Slay previously claimed his knee was so bad at one point, it was like playing on a "30-percent leg." He underwent arthroscopic knee surgery twice in his career — in 2013 with the Lions and in 2023 with the Eagles. Even with two healthy knees, one has to wonder how much Slay has left in the tank at 34 years old. Considering Caplan's report, the recent Jalen Ramsey trade looks even better on the Steelers' side — as the ever-versatile DB can line up in Slay's place if needed, in addition to his predicted safety and slot cornerback role. For up-to-date Steelers coverage, follow us on X @TheSteelersWire and give our Facebook page a like.
Spectator
04-07-2025
- Politics
- Spectator
The biggest reason people aren't having babies? FOMO
In his book Selfish Reasons To Have More Kids, economist Bryan Caplan notes that, due to modern conveniences and our better quality of life, parenting should be easier than ever. Plus, in theory, as society grows richer, people should have more children. Instead, we have fewer, and parenting seems harder than ever. Why is this? Caplan argues that it is because we have placed many new requirements and expectations on parents that previous generations never had. He contends that parenting has morphed into a suite of ever-changing, high-pressure social obligations – many of which are neurotic, consumerist and status-obsessed, such as saturating your child's timetable with extracurricular activities to ensure that they are never bored. Caplan also points out that parents spend around twice as much time with their children as they did 40 years ago. This avalanche of expensive, time-consuming, high-stakes 'stuff' has turned parenting into an unpleasant, all-consuming chore rather than something that should be rewarding and, ultimately, fun. The pressures on parents Caplan explores are social and cultural, not financial. This is something that governments need to remember when discussing the birth rates that are plummeting and plateauing around the world: if and when to have children is now an existential question, not an economic one. Bridget Phillipson has become the latest politician to push for more pronatal policies, saying she 'wants more young people to have children… to create the moments and memories that make our lives fulfilling', as part of her promotion of the new nursery places inside around 200 schools across England. The problem is that, to put it simply, government interventions do not work. Countries like South Korea, Germany, and Sweden all have generous family-friendly support measures – subsidised childcare, generous parental leave, tax breaks for married couples – yet all have fertility rates below 2.0. France spends a higher percentage of its GDP on families than any other OECD country, but last year saw its lowest number of births since the second world war. It is not an economically straightforward equation: across the Western world, couples on moderate to high incomes have fewer children than the less wealthy, whilst countries with affordable housing costs (such as Chile) still have stubbornly low birth rates (1.54). Politicians need to accept that the state is never going to be able to reverse this demographic trend because, ultimately, the biggest reason people delay having kids is FOMO (fear of missing out). Having kids is a lifestyle choice: people know that doing so means that you see your friends less, eat out less, travel less, go to the gym less, are less likely to take up a promotion if it means longer hours. As a result, people feel this often overwhelming pressure to 'make the most of your twenties', when fulfilment means fun, freedom, and furthering your career. It is only when the tick of the biological clock gets too loud to ignore, or the FOMO passes because all of your friends are having babies too, that people finally decide to settle down. Of course, there are financial barriers, in particular the extortionate cost of housing in the UK, which is arguably the main reason why couples who already have children decide not to expand their families. I had a child back in October, and I am already worried about how we will make our housing situation work if and when we decide to have another. Yet I still maintain that social push and pull factors are a more important reason why people delay having children in the first place. I am 32, and the vast majority of my friendship group do not have children. Yet many of them are in stable relationships or married, have well-paid jobs, good housing situations, supportive families, and are in a financially fortunate enough position that they could have children. It's not that they don't want children – they do eventually – but they delay for as long as possible. Why? Because they are all too acutely aware of what they give up, rather than what they gain, when they have children – whether that's the freedom to lie in, to go to Glastonbury, to train for a marathon, to travel at whim. These fears are just as paralysing, if not more, for men, who are all too often left out of the conversation of falling birth rates. Much has been made of why women delay having children, but anecdotally I feel that many of my male friends push back the timeframe because they have 'too much they want to do first', as if life stops when you have children. These existential questions are not ones that any government can answer. Cold hard cash is never going to work because the opportunity cost of having children is simply too high, and no one is going to be motivated to have a baby to prop up GDP. Politicians like Bridget Phillipson can espouse the joys of parenting all they like, but they may be better off accepting this new reality – and the impossibility of reversing it.
Forbes
30-04-2025
- Business
- Forbes
Welcome To The Era Of The Multinational Microbusiness
Beau Pilgrim runs his business, ia Blueprint, from Vidalia, Louisiana, a bucolic town of 4,000 people. In addition to running an insurance agency, he connects other small insurance brokers with specially trained back-office personnel. Pilgrim couldn't find all the talent he needed locally— 'People move away from my town to go the big cities,' he says—so he built a remote team in the Philippines. But paying workers in another country can be complicated. He relies on a fin-tech platform called Payoneer, which is designed to facilitate these transactions. 'It's taken away some of the pain points centered around overseas payroll,' he said. Pilgrim was one of 20 entrepreneurs who flew into New York City to attend the Ambition Hackathon NYC on Monday, part of Payoneer's 20th-anniversary celebration, Payo20. Although the U.S. trade war is dominating the headlines, it wasn't in evidence at the event, where some entrepreneurs flew 17 hours or more to help each other brainstorm solutions to their business challenges in small groups of peers. 'Globalization and borderless businesses are more important than ever,' said Payoneer CEO John Caplan. 'Global trade powers the sharing of ideas and opportunities for entrepreneurs all over the world. If we retreat into tribalism, we actually prevent one another from experiencing the joy, learning and creativity that happens when people from all over the world get together.' Payoneer also announced a $2 million donation to Endeavor, an NGO that supports entrepreneurship in emerging markets. Linda Rottenberg, co-founder and CEO of Endeavor, said the network of 2,900 entrepreneurs has found the best way to build thriving entrepreneurial ecosystems is to back ambitious founders in overlooked places around the world. 'When we support a founder in an emerging market, we don't just fuel one company, we unlock their 'multiplier effect,' empowering them to train, mentor and invest in the next generation, ' she said. Many entrepreneurs know there is a lot of opportunity in exporting and importing but struggle with one of the most important parts: paying suppliers and vendors or receiving payments from export clients. Solutions like wiring money can be costly for small transactions, and some countries have strict rules that make it impossible to use credit cards. The growth of exporting by small and midsize businesses (SMBs) is fueling the GDP in many emerging markets. 'When you go global from day one, you're more likely to be successful and that's whether you're live in Ho Chi Minh City, Mexico City or New York City,' Caplan said. In India, Caplan noted, close to 50% of SMBs export—currently the figure is nearly 46%, according to the India Brand Equity Foundation. That is contributing to a GDP the Indian government expects to grow 6.5% in 2024-2025. SMBs are responsible for only 11% of the export value in the U.S., according to the U.S. Census Bureau. The Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta said the GDP declined 2.7% in Q1 2025. Microbusinesses find unexpected opportunities in global trade Payoneer, headquartered in New York City, was an early player in facilitating transactions that support exporters, working with microbusiness owners not served by traditional banks. Many of its customers are outside the U.S. It powers payments on large freelance platforms such as Upwork and Fivver. While many entrepreneurs use platforms such as PayPal and Stripe for international transactions, these are not available in every country. With demand high, Payoneer has grown into a publicly traded company over the past two decades with more than $1 billion in revenue and 3,700 employees in 35 countries, handling $80 billion in transaction volume in 2024. Now that more companies hire contractors overseas, Payoneer is expanding into related services; it recently acquired Skuad, a global workforce and payroll management platform. 'People think the whole world economy relies on the US, but there are 340 million Americans and 7.4 billion people on the planet,' Caplan said. 'There's a lot of trade of services and goods that never actually touch the US. People don't quite grasp how global we are, and how borderless ambition is.' Geography is not as much of a determinant of what an entrepreneur can accomplish as it was in the past, according to Caplan. 'If you have access to technology, you can participate in the global economy regardless of where you sleep,' he said. Complex business networks take shape As international commerce among microbusinesses has evolved, and some tiny businesses have scaled up, Payoneer's team has had an opportunity to witness trends in their trading patterns. Caplan said trade is increasingly based on global networks and not traditional patterns such as 'East-West' or 'North-South.' Even the smallest businesses are now capable of taking part in complex networks of buyers and sellers and using labor arbitrage, Caplan noted. Labor arbitrage refers to hiring someone in a country or locale where labor costs are lower than in one's own location to increase the profitability of a business. For instance, a digitally-enabled startup in Chicago might hire software coders from Argentina; if it used Payoneer, it could pay the tech team through a credit card that works in their home country. The coders might, in turn, use that credit card to pay a virtual assistant in the Philippines. Setting the stage for the billion-dollar, one-person business Caplan believes the increasing ability of microbusinesses to hire contractors and use AI is likely to result in billion-dollar, one-person businesses. 'The global workforce, plus AI, makes it possible for a person anywhere to do business everywhere profitably,' he says. 'It really is only limited by people's imagination, creativity and product-market fit. Nothing is stopping a million-dollar business from being a billion-dollar business. It's just about the network they build and the product-market fit.' Sudhir Gupta, founder and CEO of EAU Deluxe, a global beauty and fragrance supplier based in Northern N.J., came to the U.S. from India for graduate school, discovered he loved collecting rare perfume bottles became a perfume importer, based in Northern, N.J. around his passion. He grew the business large enough to make the Inc. 5000 five times. He has used Payoneer when sourcing niche beauty products from Europe, finding it makes it possible for him to pay suppliers. Although Gupta never went on to pursue his master's degree, he believes that he's much happier turning his passion into a business. "I'm doing something I would have never done otherwise,' he said. Global trade has fueled it.
Al Jazeera
26-03-2025
- Business
- Al Jazeera
Why are users of 23andMe being urged to delete their data?
Users of 23andMe, a direct-to-consumer genetic testing site, are being urged to delete their personal data from the website following the company's bankruptcy filing in the United States on March 23. Here's why it matters. If 23andMe's bankruptcy goes through, it will soon be up for sale after years of financial troubles. Since its founding in 2006, the company has amassed the genetic information of about 15 million users – a dataset that is now potentially up for sale to the highest bidder. 23andMe offered services related to family ancestry and genetic traits, gradually expanding into tests for genetic predispositions to cancer and other diseases. More recently, the company sought to pivot into drug research. In 2021, the company went public with a $3.5bn valuation, partly to raise funds for this new direction. However, tough economic conditions and declining sales left the company financially unstable. In October, it laid off 40 percent of its workforce and now faces delisting from the NASDAQ after its stock price fell below $1 this week. In an open letter to its customers, 23andMe insisted that the bankruptcy 'does not change how we store, manage, or protect customer data', adding that any potential buyer would be 'required to comply with applicable law with respect to the treatment of customer data'. Despite this promise, the attorneys general of New York and California have urged residents to log onto the site and delete their data. Arthur Caplan, the head of the Division of Medical Ethics at the NYU Grossman School of Medicine, expressed scepticism about 23andMe's promises. 'If 23andMe really goes bankrupt and someone buys its assets, then what's going to happen is their promises of confidentiality go out the window. The buyer isn't bound to follow what 23andMe said,' Caplan told Al Jazeera. 'They can share data, and given the fact that DNA analysis is even better now than it was 10 years ago when all this collection started, they might be able to identify people.' Unlike the European Union, the US lacks a comprehensive federal data privacy law. Instead, data protection relies on a patchwork of state laws and industry-specific regulations. Like other DNA home-testing companies, 23andMe is not covered by the main piece of legislation governing the privacy of health records, the US Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act – better known as HIPAA – because it is not classified as a medical company. Data from companies like 23andMe can also be obtained by law enforcement under a warrant or subpoena. In one of the most high-profile cases involving a home-testing service and the authorities, California investigators in 2017 used an unnamed genealogy website to identify Joseph James DeAngelo as the 'Golden State Killer,' a prolific serial murderer who was active between the mid-1970s and mid-1980s. Even before its bankruptcy, 23andMe faced criticism for its data security practices. In 2023, hackers broke into the company's systems and accessed the information of nearly 7 million users. The company was later forced to pay $30m in a class action lawsuit over the breach. The company's scientific claims have also been questioned. Caplan said 23andMe's claim that it can reveal meaningful information about ethnic heritage is misleading because DNA can only provide a limited window into someone's ancestry. 'It didn't make sense to me that you could find out your ancestry from a genetic test because much of the information needed, including where your ancestors were living and what groups they were mingling with 200 years ago, we just don't know,' Caplan said. 'Genes do not sort out by cultural categories like Lithuanian or Panamanian. There's no Costa Rican gene.' 'I always thought the company was collecting the DNA because it wanted to sell it for research,' Caplan added. 'The whole idea of ancestry testing and finding out about your past was almost a bait and switch: 'We'll give you this cool information if you give us your DNA.'' As part of its bankruptcy proceedings, 23andMe has announced a 45-day bidding period for its assets. Former CEO and co-founder Anne Wojcicki has resigned from her position to submit her own bid for the company. 'We've had many successes, but I equally take accountability for the challenges we face today,' Wojcicki said in a post on X on Monday. 'There is no doubt that the challenges faced by 23andMe through an evolving business model have been real, but my belief in the company and its future is unwavering.' Since last year, Wojcicki has submitted several offers to a special committee of independent directors to take the company private, but those were rejected over share-price concerns. If you're concerned about your data, here's how you can delete it:
