It may be chilly now in Google’s hometown of Mountain View, California. But that’s nothing compared to the frigid temperatures expected on Tuesday in Washington, D.C., when Google CEO Sundar Pichai heads to Capitol Hill. Having skipped a Senate Intelligence Committee panel in September on state-sponsored election meddling on technology platforms, Google will be the sole guest at a House Judiciary Committee hearing (at 10 a.m. ET) titled, “Transparency & Accountability: Examining Google and its Data Collection, Use and Filtering Practices.” Pichai’s grilling will include charges of search result political bias, mishandling of user security on the moribund Google+ social network (which just revealed another leak), and collaboration with China’s repressive regime on the Dragonfly search engine project.

Republican representatives will likely bring up charges of bias against conservative voices in Google search results. They will have a hard time proving their point, since good search results are intended to surface valuable information–not the preferred conspiracy theories of far-right sites like Gateway Pundit—and since it doesn’t make sense for Google, which makes money by surfacing ads on results pages, to deliberately alienate people of a particular political view.

But don’t expect a nuanced, informative discussion of algorithm bias, which is likely beyond the technical understanding of most representatives—so look forward to tough questions from Republicans and platitude-filled replies from Pichai describing the company’s commitment to fairness and objectivity.

Likely more interesting will be the topic on which both Republicans and Democrats have some common ground: concern over Google’s well-reported Dragonfly project to build a search engine product for China that not only censors results but tracks what citizens search for.

Mistrust of China spans the political spectrum, due to geopolitical and human rights concerns. Republicans may be especially incensed that Google is pulling out of supplying AI technology to the Pentagon’s Project Maven, while continuing to pursue a deal with the country’s military and economic rival. Human rights concerns have been especially inflamed by the widely reported detention of 800,000 to 2 million Uighurs and other Muslim minorities in concentration camps.

Google’s only defense on Dragonfly so far is that the project is in its initial stages–something contradicted in extensive reporting by the Intercept. And even if Google’s assertions were true, it’s not much of a defense.

After withdrawing from search in China in 2010 over ethical concerns and a hacking attack, and after publishing a statement of AI principles in response to employee protests over Maven, Google appears to have ignored the high-minded statements it made in both those cases. So says scientist Jack Poulson, who resigned from Google in opposition to Dragonfly last August. He cites in particular what he claims is Google’s hypocrisy over its pledge to not “design or deploy . . . technologies whose purpose contravenes widely accepted principles of international law and human rights.”

“I think what we should look at is their actions, not their words,” Poulson said on a teleconference this morning, convened by a new tech and human-rights coalition opposing Dragonfly. “They very much would like to promote these [AI] principles as something they stand for. But when it comes time for actually making a tough decision and needing to stand on these principles in a difficult way, there’s a refusal.”

It’s a long shot. But if members of Congress can get Pichai to go beyond platitudes and talk about how lofty principles do or don’t apply to on-the-ground decisions, take note.

A few years ago, many people had never heard of poke. Now you can’t walk more than a few blocks in a major city before you hit a poke restaurant. But what will be the next poke?

Snack bar company Kind wants to tell you, in its list of what it considers to be the top 10 food trends for 2019. (Lots of grocery companies including Whole Foods and Fresh Direct already do this). Kind tapped its network of more than 5,000 industry insiders. That includes mostly registered dietitians, but also internal product developers, team members in other countries, and the viewpoint of CEO and founder Daniel Lubetzky.

Not everything may end up affecting the company–though a harissa-flavored nut bar would be exciting–but as a tastemaker there’s value in showing that you know where America’s appetite is heading. Here’s the wide-ranging menu of ingredients, products, and principles Kind expects.

Ingredients

2. African ingredients become more accessible: Traditional African restaurant staples like “harissa, berbere, dukkah, ras el hanout and tiger nuts” will gain more grocery shelf space as “condiments, grain snacks and protein rubs,” the report says.

3. Culinary cannabinoids create a stir: Non-psychoactive CBD is a cannabis extract that can, according to some, decrease anxiety and ease inflammation. It’s already in coffee, cocktails, and olive oil and ripe for yogurts, soups, and salad dressings.

Products

4. “Ugly” produce gains acceptance: Consumers that become more aware of how food waste causes hunger and ruins the environment may seek out imperfect vegetables. Especially as stores get more clever about advertising the beauty in that practice.

5. Fiber becomes a selling point: More products than ever will tout the mircobiome-friendly inclusion of fiber (and also pre- and probiotics). But being marketed as a gut health helper is one thing, actually being effective is another. Double check the true fiber count against nutritional labels.

Principles

7. Certain sugar levels gain acceptance: With the new FDA requirement pushing companies to disclose added sugars separate from overall sugar count, Kind sees the anti-sugar movement swinging toward a more nuanced “anti-added sugar” stance. People checking labels can begin to avoid items spiked with non-naturally occurring sweetener.

8. The “food-first” philosophy expands: American’s obsession with so-called clean labels will reemphasize inherently nutritious, minimally processed foods (as opposed to what Kind calls “heavily fortified products”).

9. Meatless and dairy-free movements go mainstream: Much like the food-first shift, people’s comfort with animal treatment and the environmental impact for livestock practices continues to erode. That means companies are more likely to create classic foods (chips, burgers, cheese) from even more exotic inputs (nuts, seeds, beans, water lentils, and algae).

10. Transparency sheds new light inside operations: The next step for food companies is to go beyond just sharing ingredient lists and clear wrappers. “In 2019, we will see transparency shape companies’ cultures, hiring practices and inclusion measures,” the report says.

Plenty of popular smartphone apps can track your location and provide it to data brokers, which use it for things like tracking the popularity of businesses, The New York Times reported today in a chilling new deep dive.

The companies usually don’t get your name, and some take steps to anonymize the information, like trying to hide people’s exact home addresses when it can discern them in the data, but experts say it’s still often relatively easy to identify people based on their travels throughout the day. After all, you may well be the only person who commutes from your neighborhood to your office. And once someone knows which trips are yours, they can tell when you’re going to the doctor or a political rally and how often you’re stopping at the bar instead of the gym on the way home.

Unfortunately, The Times reports that app privacy policies can often be vague about exactly what they do with the location data they’re scooping up. But whether you’re using an iPhone or Android device, there are steps you can take in your phone settings to limit how much data they get in the first place.

One option is to simply turn off location tracking on your phone when you’re not actively using it to find yourself on a map, hail a cab, or some other particular purpose. On iOS, you’ll find this in the Settings app under “Privacy,” then “Location Services.” Turn “Location Services” off when you’re not using it and on when you are. Similarly, on Android phones, you can go to “Settings,” then to “Lock screen & security” and “Location” and toggle tracking on and off. You can generally also toggle location tracking on Android from the quick settings pulldown menu.

But turning location on and off throughout the day might be a pain if you genuinely use a lot of apps that need to know where you are. Another option is to limit which apps can access this data in the first place.

On iOS, you also can restrict apps to accessing your location while they’re actively running, which is probably a good option unless you have some specific reason you want an app to track your phone at all times. On that Location Services privacy menu, tap each app and change its setting to “While Using the App.” If you don’t want it tracking you at all, set the option to “Never.”

Android doesn’t let you restrict apps to tracking you only while running, but you can still turn off tracking by particular apps that don’t need to know your location. Which ones those are is ultimately a trade-off between privacy and convenience: Do you mind your weather app knowing your location or would you rather type in your zip code when you want a forecast? Tap “app-level permissions” in the Location security menu and use the sliders to turn off tracking by apps you want to restrict.

“It’s like having a butt on your forehead.” That’s how Sarah McAnulty–resident squid expert and PhD candidate at the University of Connecticut–described Apple’ design for the squid emoji to Gizmodorecently.

The uproar started when the Monterey Bay Aquarium authored a series of tweets pointing out Apple’s mistake on the cephalopod illustration last week. “Apple’s squid emoji is upside down,” the organization tweeted, “the siphon should be behind the head. [Right now] it just looks like a weirdo nose.”

Squid use that siphon to propel themselves, quickly ejecting the water they gather in their bodies by squeezing their muscles. However, the siphon is not on top of the head, as it appears in Apple’s emoji, but under it. Squid also use this siphon to squirt ink from a sack inside their bodies to confuse predators.

It’s still unclear why Apple chose to put this squid’s butt on its face. Maybe it was a mistake, or perhaps they were trying to be funny. The same culprit may be responsible for misaligning the number “1” in the iOS calendar for years. It’s worth noting that the rest of the tech giants put the siphon in the right place, but many made other anatomical errors. Here’s Google’s startled-looking squid:

So why are they are all wrong except one? It probably has to do with visual simplicity. Eight arms are a lot of detail to clearly portray in a tiny icon. There’s no one supervising these emoji for accuracy, anyway: The Unicode organization that sets the emoji standards only approves a numeric code and the object of the emoji, which is why the style changes so much from company to company.

In any case, I have reached out to Apple PR for comment and will update this post if I hear back.

Capital & Main is an award-winning publication that reports from California on economic, political, and social issues.

The Georgia Bureau of Investigation has refused to release the full results of its investigation into the apparent suicide of Efrain de la Rosa, an immigrant detainee at the Stewart Detention Center in Lumpkin, Georgia. The 40-year-old de la Rosa died July 10, 2018. In the past 19 months, three people have died at the prison, which an employee told federal inspectors was a ticking bomb because of safety issues.

The refusal marks an abrupt change by the GBI, whose director, Vernon Keenan, has been lauded for his agency’s transparency.

The 40-year-old De la Rosa, a Mexican citizen and longtime U.S. resident, is believed to have killed himself while in solitary confinement — and under circumstances similar to those of Jean Carlo Jimenez Joseph, a 27-year-old Panamanian who, like de la Rosa, suffered from mental illness, and hanged himself in an isolation cell. The GBI investigated both the Jimenez and de la Rosa cases, and released its full investigation of Jimenez’s case, but not of de la Rosa’s.

Ginny Davis, the GBI’s deputy director of the office of privacy and compliance, told Capital & Main that Stephen Curry, an attorney for CoreCivic, the private prison company that operates Stewart under contract with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, recently alerted her to a federal regulation which, he said, prohibits states and local governments from disclosing information about federal detainees.

“He said you can’t disclose any of this under open records,” Davis said. “It was a warning letter.”

The GBI consulted with the Georgia attorney general’s office and decided against disclosure, Davis said. Curry, who represents CoreCivic, did not return a call for comment.

Azadeh Shahshahani, the legal and advocacy director of the civil rights group Project South, which is seeking the records said, “We find this attempt to shield the prison corporation from accountability extremely troubling and will be exploring our various legal options.”

The GBI’s 2017 investigation into Jimenez Joseph’s case revealed mismanagement at the Stewart facility. The guard assigned to check Jimenez’s cell at 30-minute intervals on the night of the detainee’s death was fired for falsifying logs to cover for his failure to do so. Records released in the investigation also revealed that Jimenez Joseph was being given insufficient doses of the psychotropic medication he’d been prescribed before his detention and that his many pleas for help with his mental health condition were ignored.

At Detention Watch Network, an advocacy group that opposes the widespread detention of immigrants, policy director Mary Small said the abuses go far beyond the Stewart Detention Center.

“At every turn,” Small said, “whether it’s [through] the Office of Inspector General or the Department of Health and Human Services looking into the facility at Tornillo, or ICE’s own death investigations, we’re seeing abusive conditions, inadequate medical care and harm caused to people who are detained. It’s in that context that their refusal to provide information is so concerning.”

The Mexican consulate in Atlanta also wants the full investigative report on de la Rosa’s death, said the Consul General, Javier Diaz de Leon. The GBI’s Davis reported Diaz de Leon’s request for records was granted under the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations. But Diaz de Leon said the medical report he was given consists only of about nine pages and appears incomplete.

By contrast, the GBI’s summary of its investigation into the 2017 death of Jean Carlo Jimenez Joseph at Stewart was 236 pages long. The GBI also produced audiotaped reports of numerous interviews its agents conducted with staff and detainees, along with videotaped evidence, guard logs, incident reports, solitary confinement logs and audio recordings of Jimenez Joseph’s conversations with his family members.

Diaz de Leon said that in mid-November he requested additional documents but has received no answer as of December 5.

Mark Fleming, an attorney with the National Immigrant Justice Center, an immigrant rights group, said that during the current presidential administration, states and localities have increasingly invoked the federal regulation that seems to prohibit disclosure of records of federal detainees, 8 CFR 236.6.

He noted that courts in at least three states have upheld a local government’s refusal to release information about federal detainees under the rule, but said its use to prevent disclosure of information on those who are deceased is questionable.

Fleming added that the underlying reason for the rule is to protect an individual’s privacy rights, which no longer exist after death.

“It would seem odd that the government has rights that are broader than the individual’s,” Fleming said.

Under the federal rule, ICE could provide records of the GBI investigation under a Freedom of Information Act request. However, such requests now take months or even years to process.

Rodney E. King, a spokesman for CoreCivic, emailed the following statement to Capital and Main:

“This matter was investigated by a state agency, GBI, but it occurred in a facility we operate on behalf of a federal government partner, ICE. In these situations, it’s our standard practice to reach out to the state government body to ensure the necessary coordination with the federal government, which has the leadership role in determining how information about an individual in its care is shared. CoreCivic is committed to transparency. We comply with all applicable open records laws and share information freely with our government partners.”

Google says its Google+ social network has again left personal data unprotected. This time the personal data of 52.5 million users–including name, email address, occupation, and age–was exposed to developers.

“[A]pps that requested permission to view profile information that a user had added to their Google+ profile . . . were granted permission to view profile information about that user even when set to not-public,” wrote Google’s G Suite VP of product management, David Thacker, in a blog post.

Google said the data leak was live for six days between November 7 and November 13, and that it has no evidence suggesting that any developers actually accessed the data.

Google announced the first Google+ breach in October, saying at the time that it planned to shut down the social network in August 2019. With this new breach, Google has decided to shut Google+ down four months early in April 2019.

The company will continue to operate the enterprise version of Google+, which is part of its G Suite for businesses.

Forget the eyes: Web browsing is the true window into your soul. It shows what you like to read, watch, and buy–and what new jobs, or relationships, you might be considering. Marketers know this and pack websites with tracking cookies (small text files) that allow them to follow your web wanderings. Internet service providers (ISPs) may even intercept your web traffic to observe the sites you visit and files you download.

The nonprofit Mozilla Foundation provides some of the best online privacy technologies in its Firefox web browser. It’s releasing its latest version, 64, on December 11.

But before new tools make it into the so-called “Release” versions of desktop and mobile apps, they get trials with work-in-progress versions for computers, phones, and tablets. The in-development editions for PC and Mac–called Firefox Beta and Firefox Nightly–may still have bugs. But there’s little risk in trying them. If you hit a snag, you can always fire up the fully baked Release version. Your bookmarks, saved passwords, and other particulars will stay the same across all the apps. (For mobile devices, Mozilla offers its privacy-centered Firefox Focus browser for Android phones and tablets, iPhones, and iPads.)

Desktop privacy guards

Mozilla has a confusing assortment of PC and Mac programs. The Release version is considered to be “stable,” with all features working properly. (Of course, bugs sometimes make it into all software.) A new Release comes out every six weeks.

And then there’s Firefox Beta and Nightly. Beta contains close-to-final features or upgrades destined for the next Release version. “Nothing gets into the Beta unless we have the intention to ship it,” says Nick Nguyen, Mozilla’s VP of Firefox. A new version of Beta comes out the same time the new Release version does. So if all goes to plan, features that premiere in Beta will make it into the next Release, six weeks later.

Firefox Nightly is an experimental version whose code is updated every evening–hence the name. However, major revamps of Nightly also come out on the same six-week cycle. “Nightly is a very raw preview of potential features for Firefox,” says Nguyen. “Expectations for stability should be much lower.”

Related: Here’s How To Plug One Of The Biggest Privacy Holes In The Internet

Here’s an example of how new features “ride the train,” as Mozilla says, from Nightly to Release:

In June, Nightly added the ability to encrypt the process of looking up a website address (converting, for instance, the “google.com” you type in to the numerical IP address 172.217.7.196 that internet routers use). Called DNS over HTTPS, the capability makes it a bit harder for a greedy ISP, malicious hacker, or snoopy government to see what sties you visit.

At the time, setting it up required going into the guts of the Nightly program, in a somewhat-hidden portion called the Configuration Editor, finding an obscurely named component, and changing a numerical value. This is not for the technologically faint of heart, although a Mozilla blog post did provide clear step-by-step instructions.

There’s high likelihood, but no guarantee, that a feature will make it beyond Nightly. In the case of DNS over HTTPS, it got into the Beta version in September as a simple checkbox option in the more user-friendly Preferences section of Firefox. And on October 23, this checkbox option made it to the Release version.

You can get a preview of all the new features (privacy-related and others) coming to Firefox on the Future Releases blog.

The latest privacy features in beta 65

As the Release version of Firefox hits 64 on December 11, the Beta hits 65, providing access to the latest well-honed (but maybe not perfect) features. The key privacy component will be improved protection from tracking by advertisers.

In August, users of the Nightly version got a new ability to block communication by so-called “third-party” cookies that report data back to someone other then the website you are visiting, such as advertising networks that track surfing behavior and build profiles. In September, the option came to the beta version, and in October it was enabled by default in Beta.

Related: Bye, Chrome: Why I’m switching to Firefox and you should too

Enhanced tracking protection will not be on by default in the new Release 64 version, as Mozilla wants to test it more. Enabling it manually requires making sense of two confusing, and confusingly similar, setting options: One labeled “Trackers” and one “Third-Party Cookies.”

Downloading Beta 65 instead means you don’t have to dig in the settings to turn on enhanced protection. It’s on by default. And if you want to adjust the settings, you’ll find a single, consolidated menu under “Content Blocking,” which is easier to decipher.

The default setting in Beta, called “Standard” may block some ads if they rely on cookies that facilitate tracking. While sites do need a way to earn money, publishers and advertisers also need to find advertising models that don’t compromise the privacy of visitors.

Privacy on the go

The browser situation is quite different, but ultimately simpler, on mobile devices. Mozilla does not make pre-release versions of Firefox widely available on iOS (although the curious can sign up for a limited test program). Both Beta and Nightly are available for Android devices, but there’s an easier option for maximum privacy and security on all phones and tablets: A special mobile browser called Firefox Focus.

It comes preconfigured with most privacy measures turned on. That includes blocking trackers for advertising, social media, and website analytics. It also erases browsing history every time you close the app, or on-demand when you tap a trashcan icon at the top right of the screen on iOS devices and the bottom right on Android.

“It’s almost like a burn-after-reading type of experience,” says Peter Dolanjski, product lead for Firefox. He recommends using Focus especially for things like click-bait links to silly or salacious sites that are likely rife with trackers–and not the kind of sites you want memorialized in your history file.

You can take the Focus settings even further, such as requiring face- or fingerprint unlock to access the app in the iOS or Android versions, and blocking the ability to take screen shots (only on Android devices). Of course you can also relax the settings, turning off any of the tracking types, if it makes your browsing easier.

Apple users who love the Safari browser can configure the two apps to work together, so that Focus acts like a plugin to provide all the same content blocking for your browsing in Safari. Mozilla describes the setup process, which just requires flipping a setting switch in each app.

Protecting online privacy and security is an ever-accelerating game of whack-a-mole, and Mozilla vows to keep fighting. In 2019, it plans to take on other types of tracking that harvest technical details from your computer to identify you, as well as to block malware that mines cryptocurrency on computers. As new threats pile up every day, so does the cost of not installing a privacy-centered browser like Focus.

When Lauren Zalaznick left her role as an executive vice president at NBCUniversal in 2013, she started looking for opportunities to bring her three decades of digital and media experience to a new environment: the boardroom. Driven by the desire to gain a landscape view of corporations and work with their leadership in an advisory capacity, she navigated a competitive recruitment process that in many ways mirrored a job search. In 2014, she was named the first outside board member of Penguin Random House.

Today, Zalaznick is a full-time consultant and strategist who serves on the boards of two publicly traded companies, Nielsen and GoPro. She also has experience advising several private companies, from Refinery29 to the audio recognition app Shazam (up until its acquisition by Apple). Earlier this fall, she and a handful of other executives with board experience spoke to a crowd of around 100 senior female professionals about how to brand themselves for corporate board service.

The event, hosted at Twitter’s New York headquarters and produced by the all-female board candidate marketplace theBoardlist, aligns with a national movement to pull back the curtain around corporations’ board curation processes and unlock the benefits of increasing gender and racial diversity. “Since recruitment happens largely via referrals, it feels closed and secret,” says theBoardlist CEO Shannon Gordon. “There tends to be a lot of legwork required around networking and making sure people know you have ambitions to serve on the board.”

From the other side of the recruitment process, Zalaznick breaks down a few questions to think through if you have corporate board ambitions.

What relevant experience can I offer?

When is the right time in your career to consider corporate board service? For Zalaznick, being a great outside director candidate starts with ensuring you have the appropriate skill sets and domain expertise. At the highest level, this likely means you are a sitting CEO or a senior executive with a strong track record in operating roles and profit and loss (P&L) management. If you’ve never served on or interacted with any sort of board, seek out opportunities to present to your current company’s board and look into joining community boards.

Zalaznick, who spent six years on Brown University’s board of trustees and currently sits on the Sundance Institute’s director’s advisory group, is also a proponent of offering your time and skills to nonprofits. In addition to presenting an important opportunity to give back, you can get experience presenting recommendations, making group decisions, and expressing differences of opinion. University and not-for-profit boards are also good ways to familiarize yourself with committee structures and roles resembling those on public boards. If you’re financially-minded, joining a nonprofit audit committee can be a great way to hone a skill set corporate boards value. Meanwhile, you may also find that your fellow board members serve on and recruit for other boards you’re interested in, too.

Who’s in charge?

Not only are public companies’ board rosters easily Googled; you can also call up the details of which members sit on particular committees. Zalaznick advises using public information to study the makeup of boards that interest you, peruse organizations’ activities, understand what their committee structures look like, and identify where gaps in experience might be. Always note who sits on (and chairs) the nominating and governance (“nom and gov”) committee. As the people responsible for assessing the skills and characteristics the board needs, nom and gov members vet all prospects. So you’re going to want to make great impressions on those people by exhaustively researching the company, the landscape, and them.

How can I express my value?

One of the keys to being competitive in the recruitment process is being able to clearly express your domain expertise and the unique contributions you’ll bring to a specific board environment. Think about the value you can add based on strategic imperatives and refresh your bio as though board members are discussing it in a meeting. If the board is clearly seeking directors with governance expertise, and you’re a lawyer or you’ve served as a chief of staff, cite examples around that. Especially if you don’t already have public company board experience, how you articulate yourself and parlay your experience in your cover letter and in-person interactions with decision makers can make or break you.

What relationships can I leverage?

In the world of boards, Zalaznick will be the first to tell you that getting introduced to a member of the nom and gov committee or a sitting CEO is a much surer way to become a candidate than blindly sending through a good-looking résumé. That in mind, as you start exploring board service opportunities, it’s critical to tell your peers, friends, and anyone who may be willing to introduce you to sitting board members. There are roughly 659,000 board members on LinkedIn globally, so another idea is to create a spreadsheet of powerful people you’re connected to, noting who serves on particular boards or might have strong relationships with sitting CEOs. “If you have an old college roommate who’s now CEO of a company looking to fill board seats, that’s the great way in,” says Zalaznick, likening the ask to letting a friend know, “I want to go on a blind date,” or “Hey, I’m looking for a sublet.” “It’s not laughable,” she says. “As you get 20 or 30 years into your career, you come up with people who are in an amazing place.” Tap those relationships.

Am I on recruiters’ radar (and lists)?

While referrals from sitting board members and CEOs are king, Zalaznick also recommends increasing your reach by getting recruiters who specialize in board placements excited about your candidacy. By the time you’re far along enough in your career to consider board service, you’ve likely interacted with search firms in various capacities, whether they were recruiting you, or you were hiring them to bring new talent to your organization. Reach out to generalist recruiters you have relationships with and ask for introductions to their firms’ board-focused counterparts.

How can I demonstrate my curiosity and capacity to contribute?

As the chair of one nom and gov board and a committee member of two others, Zalaznick reviews slates of experienced candidates and finds herself wanting to understand their curiosity and capacity to contribute. A public board exists to support the interests of a corporation’s shareholders through the deep understanding and support of that company’s CEO, she says. Like in any job interview, you want to go in intimately familiar with the company’s products and services. Know the industry acronyms and competitive landscape, and be ready and excited to discuss the company and your specific interest in it. Instead of walking into a room with an attitude of, “I want a board seat,” express why you want this board seat and why it should want you. Beyond impressing the nom and gov committee with your knowledge of the company, be sure to demonstrate your ability to listen and ask thoughtful questions about the levers that drive the organization’s lifeblood, from company performance to brand strength to leadership landscape. “If you have awareness and knowledge that cause you to ask great questions, that’s impressive,” Zalaznick says.

How do I tell if my first offer is worth taking?

While joining a corporate board is a significant commitment, Zalaznick has a general attitude about the first offer you receive: Take it. On average, roughly one independent director seat on an S&P 500 board opens each year, and you have to pass through a host of gates that may be biased against you in the quest to join a public board, says Zalaznick. That in mind, she only advises turning an offer down if you a) had a negative interview process rife with red flags, b) don’t support the CEO’s vision, and/or c) suspect the organization is entirely dysfunctional in a way that will hinder the board’s ability to serve its purpose. If none of those apply, Zalaznick encourages you to say yes, even if you don’t find the company sexy, or you have to get on a plane to make the quarterly meetings, or there are six annual meetings instead of the usual four. “The bottom line is that board experience begets board opportunity,” Zalaznick says. “One board leads to more.”

Katie Sanders is a freelance magazine journalist whose reporting pursuits have brought her to Norwegian prisons, JDate, and the White House South Lawn. She’s currently working on a book about the Office of Strategic Services. Follow her on Twitter at @katiessanders.

The number of women leading Fortune 500 companies in 2017 broke a record at 6.4%, or 32 women in the top spot at companies on the list. But when the 2018 list was released in May, that number toppled with just 4.8% of listed companies led by women.

“Women in the Workplace 2018,” a report McKinsey & Company and LeanIn.org found troubling data well before women reach the top. Women earn more bachelor’s degrees than men, and ask for promotions, negotiate compensation, and stay in the workforce at the same rates as men. But, they’re also less likely to be hired for manager roles and face a bigger gap when it comes to being promoted into manager roles. For every 100 men promoted to manager, just 79 women are. And the news is worse for women of color. “Most notably, for every 100 men promoted to manager, 60 black women are,” the report found. Largely because of these gender gaps, men end up holding 62% of manager positions, while women hold only 38%.

Find the right fit

Until companies improve their diversity efforts, women need to first seek out organizations committed to diversity and developing women as leaders, says Stacey Caywood, CEO of Wolters Kluwer Legal & Regulatory, a $1 billion global legal and compliance firm with roughly 3,500 employees.

“I think it’s really important for everyone, maybe in particular for women, to make sure that you’re really looking at an organization that has strong alignment with your own values,” she says.

Beyond finding the right environment to grow, women can be savvy about their own leadership development. Caywood and three other formidable women who landed the top spot at their companies weigh in with advice on becoming a top CEO candidate.

Grow strategically—and boldly

Good CEOs understand every aspect of a company’s operations, so your career trajectory will look more like a lattice than a straight line. You need to learn different functions, says Diane Dietz, president and CEO of Rodan & Fields, a $1 billion direct sales skincare and beauty products company with more than 700 employees.

Dietz herself is a good example. She held an executive role at grocery giant Safeway, overseeing all aspects of operations, and spent 18 years with Procter & Gamble, where she oversaw a turnaround of the Crest brand. Even with her vast experience, after Safeway was purchased by a private equity firm, she began looking for president roles before a mentor asked her why she was looking for “another number-two role.” That helped Dietz realize she was ready to think bigger.

“I think men sometimes are more willing to say, ‘Well, I’m gonna go for it.’ And sometimes they’re not even as qualified as the woman who is saying, ‘I’m not ready yet,'” she says.

Embrace risk

Taking the tough assignments—overseeing a struggling business line or managing an overseas assignment, for example—means you’re going to fail sometimes, too. But it’s important to own those failures and not sweep them under the rug, says Carol Lavin Bernick, former executive chairman of Alberto-Culver, which her family sold to Unilever in 2011 for $3.7 billion. Bernick is now CEO of Polished Nickel Capital Management, a private company with diversified holdings, and author of Gather as You Go: Sharing Lessons Learned Along the Way.

“Business is tough. Every business has issues and failures. If you can talk about what [standard operating procedures] you put in place to fix them, that’s big because you don’t want it to happen to others,” she says. Showing that you were able to move past such challenges and improve is an important skill for a CEO.

Raise your profile

Building a big network can help you immeasurably as you grow your career, says Dorothy “Dottie” Herman, CEO of Douglas Elliman Real Estate, the third-largest residential real estate brokerage in the country. When she was building her career, Herman took every opportunity she could to network with leaders. “I would pay out of pocket to fly across the country to be at an event if I knew that someone important would be there,” she says.

Don’t get lost in the crowd, she counsels. Make sure your senior leadership team knows who you are and how you’re contributing so they think of you when it’s time to plan promotions, she adds. You can’t be afraid to toot your own horn.

Caywood agrees. “If you have results to show, you should also gain the confidence to be able to showcase what you’ve done,” she says. “If you deliver or exceed the expectations [of] the team, you want to make sure that you are sharing that,” she says.

Be the boss people brag about

Another way to inspire faith in your leadership ability is to build a strong succession pipeline, Bernick says. Too many people overlook the importance of having strong successors in place at every level. You don’t want to end up in a situation where you’re so good in a role that you get stuck there because there’s no one to fill your shoes, she says. “Work on having at least two people who are superstars who could take your job,” she says.

And bond with your team, she adds. Be collegial. Don’t be afraid to share some personal details about your life. All in all, be a great boss. “When your team is bragging about your management style to other employees, that’s absolutely the best kind of validation, and I think people notice,” she says.

Find mentors who will push you

Each of the CEOs interviewed agreed that mentors were critical. Go beyond the established mentor programs in your company and seek out people who will push you, Dietz says. She again points to the mentor who encouraged her to think bigger than a president role. She encourages CEO-wannabes to find people who will say, “Do this. Try that. Push for this.”

Caywood says it’s also important to find “internal experts” who can give you counsel in specific areas or disciplines. Having people to whom you can turn with questions about an area you don’t know well is invaluable, she says.

Get board experience

Get to know what it’s like to oversee a CEO and the issues they face by getting board experience, too, Bernick counsels. Nonprofit boards and corporate boards can both provide relevant experience, as well as a peer group of corporate leaders who may prove to be valuable mentors and networking contacts, she says.

Reaching the CEO office doesn’t happen by accident. But by creating a long-term strategic plan that builds toward that outcome and selecting roles at companies that value women leaders, you can put yourself on a path toward that top spot.

Paintings can be damaged by humidity, sunlight, and countless other things–but what about bacteria? Italian researchers have discovered that old paintings are colonized by bacteria that constantly munch on them, destroying the artwork over time. And thankfully, they’ve also discovered that adding more bacteria to kill the destructive organisms can help preserve them.

According to a new paper published in PLOS One, every painting in existence will suffer from a biodeterioration process thanks to different bacterial colonies. As the scientists behind it explain, they believe it’s crucial that we understand these microbes in order to stop them.

After taking samples from the front and back of the canvas, the team led by Elisabetta Caselli isolated and cultivated several strains of bacteria–mainly Staphylococcus and Bacillus–as well as a lot of fungi of the genera Aspergillus, Penicillium, Cladosporium, and Alternaria. The researchers discovered that all of these critters love to extract nutrients from the pigments contained in the oils used in the canvas–mainly red lac (a type of pigment) and red and yellow earth.

Then they went a step further.

Caselli’s experience as a clinical microbiologist focuses on finding ways to exterminate microbes in hospitals, so she thought about using spores of another strain of the Bacillus bacteria–Bacillus subtilis, Bacillus pumilus, and Bacillus megaterium–to kill the malignant microbes and fungi. The idea worked on the sampled bacteria and fungi, so the team is now thinking about applying a mild alcoholic solution containing these spores to the reverse of paintings in order to repel kill existing microbes and prevent future invasions.

If you start your day the Jimmy Dean way, you may want to check your freezer. CTI Foods is recalling about 29,028 pounds of frozen, ready-to-eat pork and poultry sausage links products due to potential “foreign matter contamination.”

Here are the details on the affected products:

• Product name: Jimmy Dean Heat ‘n Serve Original Sausage Links Made with Pork & Turkey
• Use by date: January 31, 2019
• Case code: A6382168
• Time stamp range: 11:58 through 01:49.

The links have the number “EST. 19085” on the back of the product packaging, according to the recall notice. Consumers who have purchased these products are urged not to consume them, because they may have little pieces of metal sprinkled throughout. Consumers should throw them in the trash or return them to the place of purchase for a refund.

The problem was discovered yesterday when U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service received notification that an establishment in Tennessee had received five consumer complaints. While there have been no confirmed reports of adverse reactions from anyone who has eaten the links, consumers should not tempt fate.

I’ve interviewed over 5,000 people from more than 35 countries in my career as an executive headhunter and investor. I’ve sought out CEOs, presidents, board directors, and more for companies big and small, ranging from small startups to corporations with valuations in excess of $10 billion, on every continent except Antarctica.

Along the way, working with firms in sectors like mining, technology, education, and healthcare, I’ve learned that, contrary to popular theories, most of the qualities that make great leaders won’t show up on their LinkedIn profiles or a Myers-Briggs personality test. But they will show up in their mannerisms, their way of speaking and–most importantly–how they interact with others.

Here are five somewhat surprising qualities I’ve learned to screen for in my career handpicking the people at the top of the org chart.

They can fist-bump all the way from the janitor to the board

Above all, great leaders have to be relatable and empathetic. They understand what motivates people at a human level and how to influence situations. I’ve seen this countless times behind the interviewer’s desk, but the best example may be someone I’ve never sat down with: Barack Obama.

Whether he was horsing around with kids in the White House, dancing with a 106-year-old lady, or cracking jokes on late-night TV, he interacted with people from diverse walks of life with humility, even while holding the most powerful job in the United States.

In my experience, great leaders have a common denominator of decency and courtesy with everyone they encounter, treating my assistant the same way they treat me or my colleagues.

They attract an entourage

Great leaders understand they don’t operate in a vacuum and that building the right team can define their success. They put their own ego aside and make the people around them better–and they get a reputation for helping others achieve.

While the candidates themselves will seldom admit this, I’ve often found the best indicator of effective leadership is when people develop an “entourage” over time. When the person at the top is truly talented, people will leave a company to continue working with them as they progress to their next role.

Take Canadian entrepreneur Hamed Shahbazi. After selling Tio Networks, his online bill payment company, to PayPal for $304 million, he started a health technology company called Well–and multiple employees, investors, and contractors followed him there. That fact speaks more about his qualities as a leader than any lucrative exit ever could.

They take the fall … without taking all the credit

Business is about taking risks. Shit happens. People who are quick to throw others under the bus or play the blame game when things go wrong often aren’t good candidates to steer a ship through rough waters. That kind of behavior erodes trust up and down the org chart.

Conversely, those who spread credit around, saying we rather than I when asked about successful projects, tend to be true team players. They have a knack for taking responsibility–without claiming all the credit.

This level of commitment is especially powerful when leaders are navigating situations outside of their control, like when former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz tearfully apologized to the company after laying off 12,000 workers at the height of the 2008 recession.

Leaders who can walk the fine line between sharing credit and taking responsibility build loyalty and trust among their teams–and they recognize there is much more value in that than in saving face.

They appreciate the “unknown unknowns”

Contrary to the image of the CEO with the inflated ego, I’ve found the most natural leaders readily admit they don’t have all the answers. In fact, they go out of their way to ensure they’re never the smartest person in the room. Great leaders understand it’s not their job to unilaterally call the shots at an organization, but rather to sort, synthesize, and collate the insights of the brilliant people around them. They respect unknowns, gather the right people to minimize them, and act decisively with the info at hand.

Take former Pepsi CEO Indra Nooyi. Before deciding on a $1-billion overhaul of the company’s IT system, she read 10 IT textbooks from cover-to-cover and called professors with her questions. This approach takes a lot of humility. But leaders who can harness the power of their network also fortify companies by nurturing talent and grooming potential successors. Because ultimately, they realize their role comes with a shelf life–or at least it should. Their real job is creating a legacy that lasts long after they’ve left the building.

They take downtime seriously

I’ve seen it time and time again: All work and no play makes for an ineffective, burnt-out leader. In interviewing for top positions I’ve noticed the best leaders have a go-to way to recharge their batteries, outside of work, on a regular basis. They might spend their downtime scuba diving, like IBM’s Ginni Rometty, read 50 books a year like Bill Gates, or perfect their slow-cooking skills like T-Mobile’s John Legere.

Personally, I know I couldn’t manage a portfolio of over 50 companies if I didn’t spend time with my family, play basketball, or see friends on the weekends. Whatever it is, leaders’ hobbies help them decompress so they’re focused once they’re back at work.

What stands out about all of these qualities is that you can rarely discern them on a resume. A leader’s potential has as much to do with the subtle ways they influence others as with headline-grabbing accomplishments. As a headhunter, I’m constantly trying to figure out not just what they’ve done, but who they’ve lifted up along the way.

Manny Padda (@mannypadda) is the founder and chief people connector at New Avenue Capital.

Nearly a month ago, we learned that Amazon will set up its new headquarters in both the Washington, D.C., area and New York City. This was met with enthusiasm from some politicians, but dismay from many others, especially as details trickled out about all the concessions local officials made in order to seal the deals.

One detail stuck out to many journalists: Virginia agreed to give Amazon a heads up if anyone made a request for public records. Many balked at such a concession, because one of the few ways citizens hold the powerful accountable is by seeking records through apparatuses like FOIA and their state-level counterparts. But here was the Virginia government agreeing to give a forewarning to Amazon. At the time, Fast Company‘s Marcus Baram asked Eric Philips, press secretary of New York Mayor Bill de Blasio, if New York made the same agreement. His answer: “No.”

But it turns out, that wasn’t true.

A new report from Politico says that a top New York City official promised Amazon that the city would “alert the e-commerce giant to public records requests, in case the company wanted to try to obstruct those requests in court.”

According to the nondisclosure agreement signed by James Katz, the executive vice president of the New York City Economic Development Corporation (EDC), the group must give Amazon a heads up about public records requests. What’s more, it explicitly states in the agreement that the purpose of this heads up is to “give Amazon prior written notice sufficient to allow Amazon to seek a protective order or other remedy.”

In other words, Amazon isn’t hiding its intentions with this clause; the company is clearly saying that it is going to try and block citizens from obtaining records that might otherwise be disclosed.

Asked about his original “no” comment on Twitter, Philips apologized and said he was apparently given the  wrong information by the EDC.

I was given the wrong information at the time, Marcus. I'm sorry.

— Eric Phillips (@EricFPhillips) December 11, 2018

I also reached out to Amazon and Katz and will update this story if I hear back.

While a clause that offers forewarning isn’t unheard of, giving such a precise reason is quite unusual, writes Politico. What makes matters even worse is that New York had already said it would not agree to such terms.

It’s clear that local governments were ready to give anything and everything in order to please Amazon. And one of the consequences will be less journalistic freedom.

2018 is coming to a close, which means it’s time to start planning your travel for next year. But where should you go? It’s a tough question with so many options to choose from. A new interactive built by MIT’s Senseable City Lab helps you answer it by mapping how much flights cost from your hometown to any other destination in the world, in a single handy interface.

While the tool isn’t going to make the decision for me, its clever information design will certainly narrow down the options (or let me know that I’m going to need to save more money to make such a big trip). You can check out the interactive and start planning your next trip here.

What: An illuminating snippet from Stephen Colbert’s Monday night monologue.

Who: Stephen Colbert

Why we care: As you may have heard by now, an exciting job opportunity has recently become available at the White House. With perpetually exasperated Chief of Staff John Kelly transitioning into doing his forehead slapping from home, the White House needs new a new warm body to almost kind of keep the president on track some of the time. As a reality TV vet, Trump should not have been surprised by hoped-for Kelly replacement Rick Ayers shooting down his offer–plot twist!–but according to the New York Times, he was indeed blindsided by the rebuke and left without a Plan B. On last night’s Late Show, however, Stephen Colbert announced an unconventional pick for the job: himself.

Although it may sound like a delusion of grandeur or a stab at random humor, Colbert is only nominating himself for the position to prove an important point.

“Will I be able to control the president? No. Will we fight? Yeah. But will I bring a steady hand to a tumultuous West Wing? Also no,” Colbert says. “But no one could. Who cares?”

He’s absolutely right. At this point, it has become clear that Trump is constitutionally incapable of sticking to the script. Under the watch of much-touted Adult in the Room John Kelly, he enacted his family separation policy, tweeted an endless string of juvenile taunting, looked the other way when a journalist who was a U.S. citizen appeared to be murdered under the direction of the Saudi prince, and any other number of daily indignities we’ve all endured. And that’s with a retired Marine Corps general in charge! Imagine Trump settling gently under the thumb of someone less familiar with the rigors of military-style discipline. Whoever gets the job is destined for failure, so it might as well be Colbert–if for no other reason than at least it would be briefly funny.

Have a look at Colbert’s pitch below, which begins around the 4:30 mark.

In case you were thinking that the midterm elections were a sign of an upswing, a bipartisan group of 44 former U.S. Senators teamed up to dissuade you of that idea. The unlikely partnership of senators wrote an op-ed, published in The Washington Post, warning their colleagues in the Senate that “we are entering a dangerous period” for American democracy.

Why would John Kerry, Bob Kerrey, Al D’Amato, Chuck Hagel, Jay Rockefeller, and Dick Lugar decide to team up? Because, they say, they had no choice in the face of Robert Mueller’s investigation into the Trump administration and Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. Here are some key excerpts:

“We feel an obligation to speak up about serious challenges to the rule of law, the Constitution, our governing institutions and our national security … We are at an inflection point in which the foundational principles of our democracy and our national security interests are at stake, and the rule of law and the ability of our institutions to function freely and independently must be upheld.

We are on the eve of the conclusion of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s investigation and the House’s commencement of investigations of the president and his administration. The likely convergence of these two events will occur at a time when simmering regional conflicts and global power confrontations continue to threaten our security, economy and geopolitical stability.”

They ended their public plea by urging their colleagues sitting in the Senate now “to be steadfast and zealous guardians of our democracy by ensuring that partisanship or self-interest not replace national interest.” As the current senators decide how they would like to proceed, we’ll be over here mainlining eggnog and eating Christmas cookies like our lives–and our democracy–depend on it.

New research has found that movies with women in lead roles outperformed movies led by men at the box office. It’s a clear signal to Hollywood that inclusion isn’t just a fad–it’s smart business.

Creative Artists Agency and the digital strategy company shift7 examined 350 of the top-grossing films between 2014 and 2017 and broke those films down into five budget levels ranging from under $10 million to $100+ million. Even though there were more men in leading roles from that dataset (245 versus 105 female-led roles), women pulled in more more revenue at the global box office at each budget level. The research team also found that since 2012, all the films that made more than $1 billion at the box office have passed the Bechdel Test, the popular three-point metric created by Alison Bechdel that looks at how women are portrayed in film. To pass the test, a movie must feature two women who talk to each other about something other than a man.

CAA and shift7 joined forces through Time’s Up and the organization’s efforts to include more women in film and TV, and improve how they’re portrayed.

“This analysis affirms data showing that diversity has a positive impact on a company’s bottom line,” said Time’s Up president and CEO Lisa Borders in a press release. “As studios consider their fiduciary responsibilities to their investors, these findings offer a clear approach to delivering the best results.”

Read more about CAA and shift7’s research here.

In the hedge fund world and in the drama surrounding Cambridge Analytica’s harvesting of personal data, as well as Facebook’s year-long fall from grace, there have been few voices of conscience. David Magerman is one of them.

He’s the quantitative hedge fund guru who made headlines last month when it was revealed that he was the initial donor of an advocacy effort to convince regulators to break up Facebook. Overall, he contributed $400,000 to Freedom from Facebook, making it a powerful voice in the debate over Facebook’s size and influence amid federal investigations into whether the social media behemoth violated a 2011 consent agreement with the Federal Trade Commission over the sharing of user data with third-party companies. Facebook struck back by hiring Definers Public Affairs, a GOP-linked firm that distributed opposition research and tried to link the group with another Facebook critic, George Soros, the billionaire philanthropist who’s become the bogeyman of the right.

This isn’t Magerman’s first high-profile tangle. Last year, he made waves when he butted heads with the boss of his long-time employer, Renaissance Technologies. He spoke out publicly in several interviews about his concerns over the political views of the company’s then-CEO Robert Mercer, who was a major donor to the Trump campaign and a funder of right-wing sites like Breitbart News. Mercer also helped create Cambridge Analytica, pressuring the Trump campaign to use the data analytics firm, which was later disbanded amid revelations that it misled Facebook by harvesting data on over 85 million Facebook users to help the campaign better target likely voters. After Magerman spoke out, he was fired by the hedge fund. (He sued the firm, but later dropped the suit amid a settlement of his claims.)

Now, Magerman has joined Differential Ventures, an early-stage venture capital firm that invests in “future of data” enterprise technology solutions–those companies that have innovative ways of collecting, analyzing, and securing data. Or, as Magerman puts it more bluntly: the companies that are trying to “fix the internet” amid an explosion of data breaches, an erosion of privacy, and major anxieties about our digital future. He described his new role and his views on Facebook, data, campaign finance, and his departure from RenTech in an extended interview with Fast Company.

Fast Company: What attracted you to Differential Ventures and its business model?

David Magerman: I was really looking around after leaving Renaissance and agreeing not to work in quantitative finance. I really wanted to go back to my roots of artificial intelligence and machine learning research and see if I could find young companies that could benefit from my experience, both academic experience and also my real-world experience deploying data science models at Renaissance. And I went and spent a couple of weeks in Israel looking around, getting to know their startup culture and meeting with some people who represent and engage with the entrepreneurs in Israel. And one of them said, I’ve got this great team that you should look to join. The only thing is, they’re not in Israel, they’re back home in Philadelphia. And so, I met Alex, who is one of the managing partners of Differential, and we really hit it off and they share my interest in helping young companies.

I’m more of a pure technologist. They’ve got more of a general background in venture capital. And so it’s a good fit: I need the support that they provide to help me understand how best to help the young companies and they’re benefiting from my technology experience and my data science work to help inform their decision-making on the kinds of companies to invest in.

FC: What’s your role at the firm?

DM: I’m considered a founder. They’re a fledgling company. Two of the partners, Nick Adams and Alex Katz, have been together for around six months. They’ve been talking about doing this and we just now publicly launched it but they’ve been working behind the scenes preparing to launch it. And they have a few strategic seed investors and they made a few investments in companies that are ready, one of which I’m visiting tomorrow. The companies we invest in so far tend to be data management companies, data privacy, some data security and encryption or basically trying to safeguard data and help manage the organization of data so that it can be used and monetized.

FC: Tell me what Differential Ventures seeks to do differently than other firms?

DM: Well, for one thing, we’re looking to holistically support companies. Alex is a CPA and a lawyer and was a CFO at ff Venture Capital before he became a managing partner. And he brings to the table a lot of financial and regulatory support, helping with the kind of things that young companies typically can’t afford to do and typically tend to neglect, sometimes to their failure. So by offering some accounting services and some guidance on what legal issues and what financial issues are really important to worry about for their particular business, we can prevent failures that have nothing to do with companies’ core mission but simply because they didn’t spend enough on accounting or legal. And Nick has a lot of experience with marketing and sales. For a small fund like ours with three principals, we bring a lot of strength to the table to provide a good foundation for the companies to succeed.

“We’re going have to bite the bullet”

FC: Now obviously there have been so many breaches lately, like the Marriott breach. What are companies not doing that they should be doing when it comes to collecting and securing data?

DM: When you talk about the breaches, you’re talking about the breaches that we’ve learned about. The idea that these are times that your data’s been breached is, I think, just naive. I basically come to this assuming that my Google inbox on my laptop is in possession of anyone who, you know, will pay enough to buy it because I don’t have enough security on my home network, and the places that I connect to. There’s so many ways in which you can get hacked and so much sophistication out there that you have to assume that your data’s been compromised unless you are taking maximal efforts to secure it.

FC: Or you’re living in a cave.

DM: Right. Well, I think they have good access to caves now. But I think there’s also the idea that once you’ve aggregated enough data, like half a billion users, a 100 million users, aggregation of a lot of valuable private data. Once you’ve aggregated enough data, even if you try your hardest, I don’t think you can really succeed in safeguarding it in the current environment.

And so I think that you obviously have to make your best efforts and hope that if you do get compromised, you get compromised by the kind of people that aren’t going to damage your customers and your core market. Some people steal data just because they want data. They might want to monetize it themselves but they’re not going to hurt the people they’re stealing from. Whereas some people can steal data and then use it to victimize the people it’s stolen from. So you hope that that doesn’t happen.

But ultimately, one of the reasons why I’m getting into this whole area is to see if we can find solutions to fix the internet, to create pathways to the internet that are safe. I’ve had an email account since 1986. I’m an early adopter of the internet and an early engager with it. And back when, when it started, you know, we were reading technical papers and academics were sharing information in usenet groups, but it really was not a professional environment. Now we’re transacting international diplomacy and international finance and passing along legal contracts and doing banking and all that on an internet that was not designed for professional activity.

So, at some point we’re going have to bite the bullet and and do the heavy lifting to reform the structure of the internet. And even before I joined Differential, I’ve seen entrepreneurs with ideas of how to go about doing that, and hopefully some smart people will come along now with good ideas and then we’ll be able to fund them to see them have an impact on the internet landscape.

FC:: For investors and also for consumers, it definitely seems like data is becoming more of an issue–its security, its privacy. Do you expect that to continue to increase in importance?

DM: I’m glad people are starting to pay attention to the importance of data privacy. But in some sense, in the current environment, privacy is dead. With everyone having a video camera on their phone, you really can’t expect a certain level of privacy to exist. But the things that you thought that you find valuable, the things that you find important, you ought to be able to protect them. And you want to be able to communicate them to a small circle of trusted people without everyone being able to see them. And so there were a lot of companies that were formed in the last 10 or 15 years who are basically monetizing the flaws in the internet and almost leveraging the flaws in the internet to give themselves room for profit.

And, you know, I think that game is coming to an end. We’re going to have to start fixing the problems with the internet, which are going to make those kinds of companies less valuable. As a simple example: anti-virus software. Well, if we got rid of the viruses, then we wouldn’t need it. And so if someone found a solution to eliminate the ability for you to transmit viruses without accountability, then anti-virus companies would not be worth it.

FC: What are your thoughts on some of the data privacy legislation that is being considered? Obviously California passed their bill and now it’s being debated in D.C. and other states. What are some good reforms that you recommend?

DM: Well, I think in America it’s going to be really hard because there’s so much of a strong profit motive. And a lot of this legislation is going to be so damaging to the valuations of companies like Facebook and Amazon and Google. I think the real innovation is coming from Europe, GDPR being one of the prime examples. Their appetite for protecting citizens’ privacy at the expense of a financial value is admirable. Luckily for Americans, when Europe decides to make a sea change in their data privacy rules, international companies have to comply and they comply for all their users. So we’ve seen a whole slew of changes that have been made since the GDPR.

But I think that ultimately within the construct of the existing internet, I don’t think that there are any real privacy rules that will be effective. Because people are too careless with their data and it only takes one contact. You’re only as strong as your weakest link when it comes to security and if you are communicating with a circle of people and any one of them is promiscuous with his or her data, then the whole group becomes compromised.

Fighting to break up Facebook

FC: Obviously you’ve been in the news recently due to Freedom from Facebook. What kind of changes would you like to see Facebook make, for example, in terms of how they handle data and use it?

DM: I think the big problem with Facebook is that… there’s always been the joke that the customers of Facebook aren’t its users. Its users are its product. But I think it’s actually worse than that. Its users are its unpaid employees. And all of us are neglecting our own full-time jobs by spending our time creating content for Facebook and creating reasons for other people to be on Facebook, including advertisers and particularly motivated bots. But the main change that I would make to Facebook to ameliorate the problem is to break Facebook up into two pieces. One piece which is solely a social media company whose customers are the users. An entity that defended its users’ interests and whose profit motive and profitability model was based on making its users happy, presumably because they’re paying for the service, which I think is a necessity. And then the other piece of Facebook at arm’s length, trying to monetize in the way that they’re doing it now, trying to monetize Facebook users but doing it in a way that is on a level playing field with other people trying to do the same thing, and not being able to compromise data that Facebook isn’t allowed to use.

FC: Are you still involved with Freedom from Facebook, like giving them money?

DM: I still support them in principle. They haven’t asked me for money in a while. They have a coalition of people who are supporting them. I certainly would continue. People know Freedom from Facebook. I’ve supported a lot of different groups in the political realm but none of them have become quite as high-profile as Freedom from Facebook. And that’s the one that I was the most concentrated on, the other ones I didn’t originate. I just heard about them and thought they were worthy investments. But I still think Freedom from Facebook is a useful investment and if they did come around for more money, I would give it. Even though it was designed as a way of dealing with a particular problem being Facebook, it’s really more of a general problem of data aggregators around the internet.

It’s not just Facebook. Even beyond Twitter and Instagram and LinkedIn. Go into like Amazon and Google and any company really that aggregates a lot of data that the users kind of mindlessly expect is private, but which is extraordinarily valuable but for the annoying data privacy agreements that they make with their customers. And so the profit motive pushes these companies really hard to find ways to get around their agreements to monetize the data. And I think, to an unfortunate degree, they succeed.

“An obligation to inform the public”

FC: When you left Renaissance, about a year and a half ago, you mentioned maybe working with Elizabeth Warren, if I remember right, and maybe getting into politics. Is that something that you’ve been doing?

DM: No, that was kind of a careless reference that I made back then, partly out of disappointment in the way I was being treated. But really I’ve never been a politically engaged person in terms of a partisan person and the political things that I’ve engaged in in the last year or so have really been focused on nonpartisan efforts to kind of help democracy, not so much to help one party.

Personally, there was a day when I was actually hoping for a strong right of center government. This time around, feeling like we need some balance on some issues that I’m more kind of centrist about. And I’m disappointed that we ended up electing an administration that has no hopes of being effective and that really is not a good representation of conservative politics or conservative economic policies.

FC: Do you believe in campaign finance reform?

DM: Oh yeah [laughs]. But I mean, as long as we have the current structure, the reform needs to go back to one man one vote, not $1 one vote. And both sides of the aisle, no matter what the rhetoric is, the Democrats understand that the current landscape is a great way for them to accumulate a war chest as much as Republicans do. So even though each side’s going to snipe at the other side for their fundraising tactics, no one currently in office seems to want to do anything about it because they take advantage of it as much as anybody.

FC: Have you talked at all to Robert Mercer recently or no?

DM: Who? [He laughs.] Obviously, we’ve said our piece to each other. I don’t think we have a whole lot to talk about. But no, I haven’t been in contact with him.

FC: Do you know what he’s up to these days? What he’s funding or who? Who’s the new Cambridge Analytica? It feels like there’s a lot of murkiness on that topic.

DM: I didn’t know what was going on before all that came out. Most of what I’ve learned about, I learned from the press. I’m not exactly a great investigator of behind-the-scenes goings-on in the political world or Robert Mercer’s world. If you ever learn, I’d be happy for you to let me know.

Related: How Cambridge Analytica fueled a shady global passport bonanza

FC: Certainly. There are a lot of unanswered questions. Why did you drop your lawsuit against Mercer and Renaissance?

DM: I worked for Renaissance for over 20 years. They’re the one place that I ever worked in my professional life up until now. And you know, it was unfortunate that we got involved in the situation. We found a way to resolve it without pursuing legal action to its conclusion. And I’m very happy with the way we settled things. My dispute was never with Renaissance Technology and it really wasn’t with Robert Mercer personally. The issue had to do with some political activism that was going on that I felt like, just as a citizen of America, I had an obligation to inform the public about. And I did so. And that was the end of it, as far as I’m concerned, except that I got suspended and fired.

But I feel very good about where I am now mentally and personally. And I wouldn’t quite go as far to say there’s no hard feelings. But, you know, I’ve definitely moved on. And I think that it was resolved in a in a very satisfactory way, so there’s absolutely no reason to continue legal action.

FC: Like a financial settlement?

DM: It was really just a restoration of, I can’t talk about the details, but it was the restoration of what was commensurate with what I’d earned as an employee for 20 years. I basically retired, which was fine with me. I was on the verge of being ready to retire anyway. I wouldn’t characterize it as a financial payoff as much as it a restoration of retirement benefits.

With the latest budget deadline coming up on December 21, the prospect of a government shutdown is once again looming large over Capitol Hill and the country. And while politicians are usually hesitant to accept responsibility for grinding the U.S. government to a halt, President Donald Trump is bucking that trend this time around.

In an Oval Office meeting gone awry, the president, after blaming Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer for the previous government shutdown, said this time he would be proud to take the blame. “If we don’t get what we want one way or the other, I will shut down the government,” Trump snapped in a heated exchange. “And I am proud.”

Trump has been demanding that Democrats fund his wall at the southern border. Nancy Pelosi, the likely speaker of the House, was also at the Oval Office meeting, and let’s just say things didn’t go well.

CNN posted a video of the exchange on Twitter. You can watch the fireworks below.

“I am proud to shut down the government for border security, Chuck,” President Trump says in a testy Oval Office meeting with Democratic leaders Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer https://t.co/Ysfg0jGSNtpic.twitter.com/eumZgsQKGq

— CNN (@CNN) December 11, 2018

In a way, Kiruna’s is a familiar story: The same industry that sustained the town is now occasioning its collapse.

Usually, the damage is more subtle. A coal-fired plant that employs people in a small town might leak enough toxins into the air over time to damage the health of local residents. On an oil rig that sustains the economy of a coastal city might leak harmful chemicals into the water supply.

But the example of Kiruna, a city of 18,000 people above the arctic circle, is a much more literal one. A century-old mine next to the town that used to sustain Kiruna’s local economy is now swallowing up the city. As miners have dug as deep as one mile below the ground to extract iron ore, they’ve disrupted the foundation of the city. Underneath some of Kiruna’s central structures, like the church, the ground has cracked and shifted and begun to pull the buildings down with it. Researchers estimate that by the end of this century, the city of Kiruna will collapse entirely into the mine.

In 2004, Luossavaara-Kiirunavaara Aktiebolag (LKAB), the company that operates the mine, struck up a deal with the city of Kiruna. They would pledge around $1 billion for the town to physically relocate into a valley two miles away, and LKAB would continue mining the same site. The move, which is now officially underway, is one of the highest-profile urban relocation efforts to date, and is expected to be completed by 2040, with the center-most part of the town re-established by 2022.

Over the course of the last decade, says Stefan Sydberg, vice deputy chairman of the Kiruna city council, Kiruna and LKAB determined which parts of the sprawling city would be affected by the eventual collapse into the mine. The whole center, Sydberg says, which includes the city hall, as well as many shops, schools, homes, and a fire station, fell within the affected zone.

It took years of debate–from around 2004 to 2011–Sydberg says, for the city to determine which structures to try to preserve and relocate, and which to destroy and rebuild. The sinking church, which was once voted the most beautiful building in Sweden, will be moved, but the old city hall will be left. Constructing a new city hall, Sydberg says, represented an opportunity for Kiruna to re-establish itself for the future.

In 2012, the city issued an RFP for architects to design a new central building for Kiruna; the Danish design firm Henning Larsen won. The new town hall, called “The Crystal” is a cylindrical, modern structure that’s designed to act as a welcoming space in the relocated town center. Opened in November 2018, The Crystal houses the typical government offices around the perimeter of the building, but the middle is dedicated to telling the story of the city’s move. “The design includes the original bell tower, and recycles building materials from the 1958 town hall, slated for demolition during the move,” says Louis Becker, partner and design principal at Henning Larsen. “In this way, the new town hall represents not only a visual reimagining of the town, but a physical continuation of Kiruna’s history.”

Now that the town hall is re-established, Sydberg says, the move is beginning to feel more real for the residents of Kiruna. But that does not mean it will be easy. Residents of the sinking zone, in particular, face a tough choice. Even with the funding from LKAB, apartment rents will be higher in the new town center. Sydberg says that the city is working to phase in the higher rents gradually, so that the approximately 6,000 people who will be displaced by the relocation could move to a new place and pay the same as they did previously, and see a slight increase in their rent every year. Some might instead choose to move into apartments outside the subsidence zone, which will stay the same cost or be cheaper, if they become available. “It’s a challenge,” Sydberg says. “We don’t want to lose any residents, but we also know that we can’t make people move to the new town center.”

Kiruna’s solution, which he hopes the new town hall will begin to help realize, is to make life in the new city center as appealing to residents as possible to offset the potentially higher costs, and the traumatic experience of having to abandon their old homes to the mine. “The first thing we did when planning the move was to listen to the people who would be affected,” Sydberg says. One of the main points of feedback they received was that many residents were concerned that moving into a valley would make them feel isolated. The new town is laid out so that “you will never be more than three blocks from nature,” Sydberg says. The new Kiruna radiates out from the city hall in a way that integrates the streets and amenities with nature, to make people feel more in touch with the environment around them.

That integration with nature, Sydberg says, underlines Kiruna’s ultimate goal in relocating. “We have an obligation to take notice of climate change,” he says. Sydberg and the residents of Kiruna are well aware that the type of industry that is causing their town to collapse also causes more systematic damage to the environment. In designing the new city, Kiruna will build out new wind energy capacity, and harness excess heat from the ongoing mining activity to power the town. The aim is for the new city to be completely carbon-neutral.

What’s fascinating about the Kiruna relocation effort is that because the line between LKAB’s mining activity and the town’s demise is so clear, the mining company is obligated, under Swedish law, to pay for the move. “We have an advantage in that we are getting funds for relocation,” Sydberg says. He acknowledges that towns like Kivalina, a tiny place on the Alaskan peninsula contemplating relocation due to rising sea levels, should receive similar funding, but face a more uphill battle to secure it. After all, industries like mining and drilling causes sea level rise, but in many cases, it’s much harder to pin blame on one specific company. As more and more coastal towns or towns surrounded by drying-out deserts might have to consider relocation in the years to come, governments should begin to examine ways to hold companies with direct links to climate change accountable for paying damages, as they have done in Kiruna.

While Sydberg recognizes that Kiruna has many advantages in carrying out its relocation, he thinks that other vulnerable cities can still learn from them. The key he says, is for towns and cities to start the conversation with residents early. For Kiruna, one of the most difficult things has been balancing the desire to start afresh with deciding what to preserve and bring along. That, Sydberg says–along with collective thinking about what a fresh start in a new place might look like–needs to be a long and thoughtful conversation. In Kiruna, even as the move is underway, that conversation is still ongoing.