Photo Credit: BRJ for Vonoi Magazine Will Packer drop many powerful ideas about producing some of the worlds biggest est movies and productions. Timberland talked about how AI is changing the music business for the better and how many need to jump on board or get left behind. The house was packed for Will Packer & Timberland conversations at #AfroTech23 #Willpacker #timberland
Vonoi Magazine
0 Comments
AfroTech 2023 in Austin Texas - Kicks Off Today & Vonoi Magazine will bring you the highlights.11/1/2023 Photos Credit: BRJ for Vonoi Magazine AFROTECH™ Conference is the largest Black tech conference of the year! Get ready to connect with a global community of 20,000+ Black tech innovators during a series of digital and in-person events filled with dynamic programming on emerging trends, networking opportunities with industry leaders and conversations with top tech recruiters. AFROTECH™ Conference 2023 will take place Wednesday, November 1 through Sunday, November 5, 2023 AfroTech has a brand-new app, AFROTECH™ Connect! Keep up with all things #AFROTECH23, and download our new app via Apple’s App Store or Google Play. The AFROTECH™ Connect mobile app was created to enhance your conference experience and provide all the real-time information in the palm of your hand. Attendees can create their professional profile and upload their resumé to the AFROTECH™ network after successfully registering for the conference. Talent Infusion powered by AFROTECH™ connects you with networking and career opportunities at top companies across industries. AfroTech invites students from all over the world to apply for our AFROTECH™ Conference 2023 Scholarship. Attending this in-person conference will be a one-of-a-kind experience and opportunity in your academic career. For more info click below https://experience.afrotech.com/ Vonoi Magazine at VonoiMag.com
Kanye West’s Transformational Journey: Elevating Kim Kardashian from Waitress to Billionaire with a $1 Billion Empire and a Garage Full of Luxury Supercars. In the world of pop culture and celebrity power couples, few names shine as brightly as Kanye West and Kim Kardashian. Their journey from humble beginnings to international stardom has been nothing short of remarkable. This article delves into the fascinating transformation Kanye West orchestrated in Kim Kardashian’s life, taking her from a waitress to a billionaire with a $1 billion empire, and a garage filled with expensive supercars. Kim Kardashian, the daughter of the late Robert Kardashian, was already a socialite when she met Kanye West. She was primarily known for her reality TV appearances on shows like “Keeping Up with the Kardashians.” At that time, Kim’s net worth was substantial, but nowhere near the billionaire status she enjoys today. Kanye West, a prolific musician and fashion mogul, was determined to change the course of Kim’s life. He recognized her potential and was confident that she could become a force in the business world. Kanye’s influence extended beyond music; it encompassed fashion, entrepreneurship, and a unique sense of branding. One of the first steps in transforming Kim’s life was the creation of the Kardashian-West brand. This fusion of two influential last names represented not just a union in marriage but a union in business acumen. Together, they embarked on ventures like fashion lines, fragrances, and endorsements, quickly amassing a Under Kanye’s mentorship, Kim ventured into various businesses. The beauty industry was a significant milestone as she launched her makeup line, KKW Beauty. Her cosmetics brand was an instant hit, capitalizing on her massive social media following and Kanye’s marketing genius. Kim Kardashian’s net worth soared, thanks to her savvy business decisions and strategic partnerships. Her empire, which includes KKW Beauty and her shapewear brand, Skims, has been estimated to be worth over $1 billion. Kanye’s vision, combined with Kim’s determination, turned this power couple into a financial force to be reckoned with. Kanye West’s influence on Kim’s life extended beyond business. He introduced her to a world of luxury and extravagance, filling their lives with opulent experiences and possessions. Kim’s wardrobe evolved into a collection of high-end fashion pieces, and their real estate portfolio includes multimillion-dollar properties. Kanye’s love for luxury cars led to a garage full of exotic supercars. Kim was not left behind in this indulgence, as she often showcases her own impressive collection of high-performance automobiles. This newfound passion for luxury cars symbolizes the couple’s opulent lifestyle and shared interests. Kanye West’s process of changing Kim Kardashian’s life is a testament to the power of love, influence, and entrepreneurial spirit. From her days as a waitress to becoming a billionaire with a billion-dollar empire and a garage full of expensive supercars, Kim’s journey has been nothing short of extraordinary. Together, Kim and Kanye have rewritten the script for celebrity success and redefined the possibilities of fame and fortune. Vonoi Magazine
Deion Sanders, often known as "Prime Time," is a former professional American football player who left an indelible mark on the sport during his illustrious career. Born on August 9, 1967, in Fort Myers, Florida, Sanders excelled as both a cornerback and a kick returner, earning a reputation as one of the most versatile and electrifying athletes to grace the NFL.
Sanders played college football at Florida State University, where he was a standout cornerback, and later pursued a dual-sport career, also participating in baseball. In 1989, he was selected by the Atlanta Falcons in the first round of the NFL Draft and embarked on a remarkable NFL journey, which included stints with several teams, including the Atlanta Falcons, San Francisco 49ers, Dallas Cowboys, Washington Football Team, and the Baltimore Ravens. Renowned for his remarkable speed, agility, and ball-hawking skills, Sanders was a two-time Super Bowl champion with the 49ers and Cowboys and a member of the NFL's 1990s All-Decade Team. He was also a perennial Pro Bowl and All-Pro selection during his career. His flashy style, showmanship, and penchant for making game-changing plays earned him the nickname "Prime Time" and solidified his status as a true NFL icon. Off the field, Deion Sanders has remained a prominent figure, with a successful career in sports broadcasting and as a sports analyst. He's known for his philanthropic efforts and involvement in various charitable activities, particularly in his ongoing work with youth and underprivileged communities. Deion Sanders' influence extends far beyond the football field, making him a respected and well-rounded figure in the world of sports and entertainment. B. Randall - Vonoi Editor & Cheif
Vonoi Magazine Staff Writer The Federal Reserve Thursday officially launched its long-awaited instant payment service FedNow, which allows consumers and businesses to send and receive money in seconds. The system lets Americans pay for groceries instantly, businesses pay their suppliers, or people pay each other. It will be available 24 hours a day, every day of the year, with full access to funds immediately. FedNow isn’t offered directly to individuals and businesses, but it will serve as the basis of infrastructure for instant payments by linking banks. Transactions occur between bank accounts and enable funds to be transferred from a sender’s bank account to a receiver’s bank account immediately. The limit per customer credit transaction will be $500,000, but the initial setting of the transaction limit will be $100,000. The money can move from consumer to consumer, from consumers to businesses, or from business to business. "The Federal Reserve built the FedNow Service to help make everyday payments over the coming years faster and more convenient," said Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell. "Over time, as more banks choose to use this new tool, the benefits to individuals and businesses will include enabling a person to immediately receive a paycheck, or a company to instantly access funds when an invoice is paid. The Federal Reserve Thursday officially launched its long-awaited instant payment service FedNow, which allows consumers and businesses to send and receive money in seconds. The system lets Americans pay for groceries instantly, businesses pay their suppliers, or people pay each other. It will be available 24 hours a day, every day of the year, with full access to funds immediately. FedNow isn’t offered directly to individuals and businesses, but it will serve as the basis of infrastructure for instant payments by linking banks. Transactions occur between bank accounts and enable funds to be transferred from a sender’s bank account to a receiver’s bank account immediately. The limit per customer credit transaction will be $500,000, but the initial setting of the transaction limit will be $100,000. The money can move from consumer to consumer, from consumers to businesses, or from business to business. "The Federal Reserve built the FedNow Service to help make everyday payments over the coming years faster and more convenient," said Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell. "Over time, as more banks choose to use this new tool, the benefits to individuals and businesses will include enabling a person to immediately receive a paycheck, or a company to instantly access funds when an invoice is paid." Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell. (AP Photo/Manu Fernandez)FedNow is different from apps like Venmo, which require holding balances in the app rather than sending and receiving money directly to or from your bank account. And it isn’t instantaneous. "Consumers might also have the impression that sending money through Venmo is instant, but Venmo doesn’t do real-time settlement," said Rusiru Gunasena, SVP of RTP Product Management and Strategy at The Clearing House. "There’s no money in hand in your wallet. There’s a lot of gymnastics behind the scenes needed to settle the payment, and thus [it's] not true real-time payment." FedNow is also different from traditional payment rails of check, ACH, and wire services. ACH transfers are electronic bank-to-bank money transfers processed through the Automated Clearing House network. The service launches with the participation of 35 banks of different sizes, including JPMorgan and Wells Fargo as well as credit unions. The Fed is focused on increasing the number of institutions that use FedNow for sending and receiving payments. The US isn’t mandating that financial institutions offer the service. Some banks will need to upgrade older payment infrastructures, accounting procedures, and other back-office processes to accommodate the expanded 24/7 operating hours. The Fed believes when FedNow is fully available and widely used, individuals will be able to instantly receive their paychecks and use them the same day, and small businesses can more efficiently manage cash flows without processing delays. The Fed maintains that making funds immediately available will help Americans living paycheck to paycheck or small businesses with cash flow constraints by avoiding late payment fees and freeing up working capital to finance growth. Over the coming years, the Fed says customers of banks and credit unions that sign up for the service should be able to use their bank’s app or website to send instant payments. In a speech earlier this month, Cleveland Fed President Loretta Mester noted that FedNow will offer the public more flexibility to manage their money and to make time-sensitive payments whenever needed. She said the payment service would help households avoid late fees when making payments and could help individuals who aren’t on a regular payroll, such as gig workers, get faster access to their wages. Mester also said the payment service could help the federal government disburse support payments faster during emergencies.
Analysts say FedNow could also cut demand for payday loans as consumers won't have to wait for a check to clear. For businesses, there could also be upside for paying suppliers on time, and businesses could embrace it as a less costly, and more certain, way to accept consumer payments. Fed Governor Michelle Bowman has said that FedNow could offer some of the same benefits as a central bank digital currency. FedNow comes after the private sector instant payments service, The Clearing House’s Real-Time Payments (RTP) was created in 2017. The RTP network has a $1 million transaction limit, and over 150,000 businesses are already actively sending payments through the RTP network. Vonoi Magazine "This is the culmination of a dream that has been held by Justice Roberts and especially Clarence Thomas for decades," says Law Professor Justin Hansford.
The Supreme Court’s ruling on affirmative action didn’t come out of nowhere. For decades, conservatives on the court have pushed for a “colorblind” view of the constitution, implying that acknowledging race is somehow inherently discriminatory. There is arguably no greater champion of that viewpoint than Justice Clarence Thomas. And on Thursday, Thomas got his ultimate wish. In a decision split entirely on conservative and liberal lines, the Supreme Court declared the use of race in admissions policies (with narrow exceptions) unconstitutional. The ruling landed a mortal blow to efforts to integrate schools in the United States after years of attacks on integration policies in K-12 education. “This is the culmination of a dream that has been held by Justice Roberts and especially Clarence Thomas for decades,” says Howard Law School Professor and Executive Director of the Thurgood Marshall Civil Rights Center, Justin Hansford. From his rulings in significant affirmative action and integration cases such as Grutter v. Bollinger, Fisher v. University of Texas I & II, and Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District, Thomas has been nothing if not consistent. “Clarence Thomas wrote a 58-page concurring opinion that’s pretty extraordinary,” says American University Washington College of Law Professor Stephen Wermiel. “And he read from it from the bench for quite a while, and it is the consummation of Clarence Thomas’s views on race expressed in school desegregation cases expressed in affirmative action cases. I mean, this is the moment he’s been waiting to sort of have his day.” In his noted concurrent lengthy current opinion in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, Thomas re-iterates his dissent in Grutter. “All forms of discrimination based on race—including so-called affirmative action—are prohibited under the Constitution,” writes Thomas. He goes on to bash Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson’s argument that our society should work to undue the ills of systemic oppression and slavery, calling obvious signs of inequality such as the wealth gap “irrelevant.” Instead, he says that “the law must disregard all racial distinction.” It’s an interesting stance from a man who grew up in the Jim Crow South and went on to attend Yale Law School, which had an explicit affirmative action policy at the time he was admitted. Nonetheless, it’s clearly an opinion he’s held for decades. Vonoi Magazine The music mogul pointed to Diageo's $1 billion acquisition of competing tequila brand Casamigos, which was founded by George Clooney, as evidence of racial discrimination.
Spirits giant Diageo said it’s severing a partnership of 15 years with Sean “Diddy” Combs, who helped grow the company’s then-struggling Ciroc label as a brand ambassador and joint-venture partner. The move was in response to the music mogul suing the British alcoholic beverage maker in June for racial discrimination, claiming that Diageo starved his vodka and tequila brands of promised investments and only marketed them to “urban” consumers. Diageo made the announcement on Tuesday in a court filing seeking to dismiss the case or move it into arbitration. In a statement, Combs’ lawyer John Hueston said, “Diageo attempting to end its deals with Mr. Combs is like firing a whistleblower who calls out racism.” “Over the years, he has repeatedly raised concerns as senior executives uttered racially insensitive comments and made biased decisions based on that point of view,” he added. “Diageo even acknowledged the problem by agreeing in his contract to treat DeLeón the same way it treated their other tequila brands.” Diageo first approached Combs in 2007 to handle marketing and promotion for Ciroc in an equal-share joint venture. He said in the suit that he “sparked spectacular growth” for the Ciroc and DeLeón labels despite the company refusing to devote proper resources, arguing that they were “typecasted” as “black brands that should be targeted only to ‘urban’ consumers.” Diageo allegedly didn’t comply with its obligations in the agreement by producing lower quantities, distributing in “fewer outlets” and “limiting its marketing and promotion of” DeLeón, as compared to other brands, according to the complaint. In 2014, Diageo acquired competing tequila brand Don Julio and committed to spending $400 million to grow the business. The company then spent $1 billion three years later to acquire Casamigos. “Following its acquisition of these competing brands, Diageo effectively abandoned DeLeón,” states the complaint. “Diageo instead focused its market positioning efforts on brands like Casamigos (with its founders George Clooney, Randy Gerber, and Mike Meldman), Aviation Gin (with its owner Ryan Reynolds), and Ketel One (with the Nolet family) as its preferred choices for the broader market.” Diageo, moving to dismiss the suit, stressed that its contract with Combs doesn’t require equal treatment of his brands but rather “measured and proportionate treatment and support of the DeLeón brand, while ‘taking into account’ a variety of differences among the brands,” according to a court filing. The company said in a statement on Tuesday that Combs has “repeatedly undermined our partnerships and threatened to publicly defame Diageo if we did not meet his unreasonable financial demands.” “We tried for years to salvage the broken relationship with Mr. Combs,” added the company. “We funded the purchase of DeLeón for the joint venture and proceeded to invest more than $100 million to grow the brand. Despite having made nearly a billion dollars over the course of our 15-year relationship, Mr. Combs contributed a total of $1,000 and refused to honor his commitments.” Vonoi Magazine While buyers in more affordable ranges are experiencing massive housing shortages, that’s not the case for the Los Angeles luxury home market. "We have a good amount of inventory,” Josh Altman, co-founder of the Altman Brothers, a real estate agent firm that focuses on luxury homes, told Yahoo Finance LIVE (video above). "Good houses still are selling." In Los Angeles, there are 400 available listings for single families over $5 million, representing 18% of the total single-family inventory of around 2,200 homes, according to a filter search on Redfin.com. But there are a lot fewer buyers in this price range. A $5 million home requires buyers to earn around $850,000 a year, a bracketed range that includes less than 1% of Californians, based on data analyzed by SmartAsset. (Note: The average U.S. income is around $70,000) "I think the buyer has the upper hand," Altman said. Luxury buyers took a breather in April, though, after Los Angeles City imposed a so-called "mansion tax" — officially known as the Measure ULA — to help fund solutions for the city's homeless crisis. The measure tagged on an extra 4% in taxes for properties sold over $5 million and 5.5% on properties sold over $10 million. That was on top of the city's base transfer tax. This new measure dented demand for houses over that threshold in Los Angeles. Only two properties sold in Los Angeles in April were over the $5 million mark, compared with 126 condo and homes sold in March, one month ahead of the ULA deadline, according to the Los Angeles Times. "We had an extremely slow April," Altman said. Sellers, knowing the tax was looming, tried to offload properties before April. One developer promised an Aston Martin, Bentley, or McLaren vehicle to the buyer of its $16.5 million listing, a new construction home in Beverly Hills, as long as the purchase was made before April 1. The home didn’t sell and remains on the market, even after a price cut of $500,000. Actor Mark Wahlberg sold his Beverly Hills mansion for $55 million in February only after a $32.5 million price drop. "Across the board, the buyer mentality is all about a deal these days," Altman said. With good reason. The ULA rates are not progressive, which means the taxes are levied against the total value of the property and not just the additional amount over the threshold. For instance, a property transaction of $5,000,001 triggers $222,500 of tax revenue, according to the city's ULA tax calculator. The two luxury homes sold in April — at $5.7 million and $7.5 million — brought in over $500,000 for Measure ULA. But there are signs that buyers are coming back, Altman said, noting that May was the strongest month with closings and June is "looking like it's going to double that," he said. "I'm sitting in my car out front of a listing because I got a big showing," he said, "which is always a good sign." By: Rebecca Chen Tyler Perry reportedly stands as the new owner of BET. According to an initial report by Streamr, the media mogul will take control of Black Entertainment Television and VH1, both once owned by Paramount.
However, the original report by Streamr has been removed from its site. Paramount, BET or Perry has yet to confirm or deny the report. If the deal is finalized, it will come several years after Perry partnered with BET to launch BET+, a streaming service which features original TV and film projects produced by Perry. Started by Bob Johnson in 1980, BET provided Black content in an era where minorities rarely got an opportunity to showcase work on network TV. In 2000, Johnson sold BET for $2.3 billion to Viacom. Viacom would eventually become Paramount. Perry has worked with BET since 2017 and has several original programs on the streaming service BET+. If Perry is able to secure the deal, he would be able to add the cable station and streaming service to his media empire which also includes the 330-acre Tyler Perry Studios in Atlanta. It would also clear the way for BET to receive advertising dollars geared to minority owned media companies. General Motors and Coca-Cola have committed to significantly increasing ad spends for companies in that sector. According to Forbes, Perry is worth $1 billion. |
Get Your Copy Today
Issue 400
Issue 300
Issue 200
Issue 100
AuthorThe Business of Doing Business. Archives
April 2024
Categories |