■ Hiring and Firing
When CEOs get the boot
Congratulations! You have just been named chief executive. Here's a bit of advice: Don't unpack your bags. Not only is the imperial CEO a thing of the past, so, too, is the idea of the long-tenured chief executive, Strategy & Business says in its summer issue. Some 355 of the chiefs of the world's 2,500 largest companies -- that's 14 percent -- left office last year. Of that number, 111 of them "were forced from office for performance-related reasons or because of disagreements with their boards," according to the article's authors. "This is the highest level of forced resignations we have seen," they write. "It represents a 300 percent increase over 1995, the earliest year we benchmarked." The authors say that this turnover is "a natural response to today's difficult corporate environment -- continued pressure for investment returns, geopolitical uncertainties, expanded regulatory oversight and international talent wars - along with the perceived or real inability of many CEOs to deliver."
■ Promotions
Soup Nazi Inc
In one of the better-known Seinfeld episodes, New Yorkers groveled at the feet of the Soup Nazi, a man who, depending on his mood -- and your attitude -- might or might not serve you what was described as the world's best potage. The character was reportedly based on the soup purveyor Al Yeganeh. Chain Leader, a restaurant trade magazine, reports Yeganeh now has "teamed up with seasoned food industry executives to take his famous recipes beyond New York via The Original Soup Man concept." Yeganeh's image is on all the signs and he will serve as the company spokesman. "He will not permit any follow-up or personal questions from the media, with whom he only communicates via e-mail ... Yeganeh prohibits reporters and prospective franchises from using the `Soup Nazi' phrase that made him famous."
■ Office dating
Colleages with benefits
Apparently there is a lot more going on at the office than just meetings and memorandums. Some 58 percent of workers surveyed said they had had an office romance, according to an article in the current issue of Men's Health. And 19 percent of employees reported they had dated a boss or supervisor. That number would seem accurate since 19 percent of the people in the same survey said they had dated a subordinate. Nearly four out of 10 said their company had no official policy on office romances. Some 23 percent said they had had sex in the office.
The Ministry of Transportation and Communications yesterday inaugurated the Danjiang Bridge across the Tamsui River in New Taipei City, saying that the structure would be an architectural icon and traffic artery for Taiwan. Feted as a major engineering achievement, the Danjiang Bridge is 920m long, 211m tall at the top of its pylon, and is the longest single-pylon asymmetric cable-stayed bridge in the world, the government’s Web site for the structure said. It was designed by late Iraqi-British architect Zaha Hadid. The structure, with a maximum deck of 70m, accommodates road and light rail traffic, and affords a 200m navigation channel for boats,
PRECISION STRIKES: The most significant reason to deploy HIMARS to outlying islands is to establish a ‘dead zone’ that the PLA would not dare enter, a source said A High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) would be deployed to Penghu County and Dongyin Island (東引) in Lienchiang County (Matsu) to force the Chinese military to retreat at least 100km from the coastline, a military source said yesterday. Taiwan has been procuring HIMARS and Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) from the US in batches. Once all batches have been delivered, Taiwan would possess 111 HIMARS units and 504 ATACMS, which have a range of 300km. Considering that “offense is the best defense,” the military plans to forward-deploy the systems to outlying islands such as Penghu and Dongyin so that
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest foundry service provider, yesterday said that global semiconductor revenue is projected to hit US$1.5 trillion in 2030, after the figure exceeds US$1 trillion this year, as artificial intelligence (AI) demand boosts consumption of token and compute power. “We are still at the beginning of the AI revolution, but we already see a significant impact across the whole semiconductor ecosystem,” TSMC deputy cochief operating officer Kevin Zhang (張曉強) said at the company’s annual technology symposium in Hsinchu City. “It is fair to say that in the past decade, smartphones and other mobile devices were
‘CLEAR MESSAGE’: The bill would set up an interagency ‘tiger team’ to review sanctions tools and other economic options to help deter any Chinese aggression toward Taiwan US Representative Young Kim has introduced a bill to deter Chinese aggression against Taiwan, calling for an interagency “tiger team” to preplan coordinated sanctions and economic measures in response to possible Chinese military or political action against Taiwan. “[Chinese President] Xi Jinping [習近平] has directed the People’s Liberation Army to be ready to invade Taiwan by 2027. China has a plan. America should have one too,” Kim said in a news release on Thursday last week. She introduced the “Deter PRC [People’s Republic of China] aggression against Taiwan act” to “ensure the US has a coordinated sanctions strategy ready should
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