Apple is Now Bigger than Bigger

APPLE NOW WORTH ALMOST A TRILLION DOLLARS.

Apple market is now above $765 billion. Combined with Exxon Mobil Corp.'sXOM -1.01% pullback in the last six months, Apple has pulled off the rare occurrence of being worth at least double any other publicly traded U.S. company. No. 2 Exxon’s market cap has eased to $374 billion.

On a year-end basis, the last time the biggest company by market value was worth at least double the second-largest was 30 years ago, says S&P Dow Jones Indices’ Howard Silverblatt. At the conclusion of 1983, 1984 and 1985, International Business Machines Corp.’s market cap was more than twice Exxon, which ended each of those years in second place.  At its widest year-end point back then, IBM was worth 140% more than Exxon.

Three decades hence, the most-valuable company is worth more than 10 times that and is a 30% stock jump from becoming the first trillion-dollar company.

Exxon in late 2008 was nearly double the market cap of the then-No. 2s, which alternated between Microsoft Corp.MSFT +0.67% and Wal-Mart Stores Inc.WMT +0.36%, as Exxon help up better than most stocks amid the financial crisis.

Since Apple first got past Exxon in 2011, the company has largely held the top spot uninterrupted. But it really wasn’t until last summer that Tim Cook’s outfit put substantial, consistent room between it and Exxon. That gap has only grown further in 2015 with Apple up  19% and Exxon falling 3.7%.

Floyd Mayweather's mum on proposed Las Vegas bout

Floyd Mayweather will reportedly take a 60 percent piece of the purse if he agrees to fight Manny Pacquiao in May in Las Vegas.

In what seems like another attempt to pressure Floyd Mayweather Jr. into agreeing to fight Manny Pacquiao, a flurry of stories have emerged indicating that Top Rank, which handles Pacquiao, has agreed to terms for a super fight between the boxers in May.

Rap Genius Gets Punished by Google For Link Schemes

Guess this explains why i have'nt been seeing rap genius whenever i search for music lyrics recently.

RapGenius.com removed from the first page of Google after link scheme is brought to the attention of Google's head of search spam.

According to SearchEngineLand.com, Google’s head of search spam, Matt Cutts, has chosen to remove the lyrics-dedicated website RapGenius.com from being included on the first page of Google when a search is performed.

Google’s decision to do so comes shortly after writer John Marbach discovered that those at Rap Genius were using a link scheme disguised as an “affiliate” program to alter their rankings on Google, specifically Rap Genius lyric pages to songs off of Justin Bieber’s newly-released album, Journals.

“However, music is highly cyclical, and the traffic from previous winners will eventually fade,” says Marbach in his story. “Looking forward into 2014, it’s only logical that Rap Genius would hope for Bieber’s new songs to refer them enormous traffic.”

Following Google’s move to remove Rap Genius from the first page of Google, the founders of Rap Genius issued an apology in the form of an open letter titled, “Open Letter to Google About Rap Genius SEO.”

In the open letter, they revealed they “effed up” and also called out their competitors for “suspicious backlinks.”

“We effed up, other lyrics sites are almost definitely doing worse stuff, and we’ll stop,” read the letter. “We’d love for Google to take a closer look at the whole lyrics search landscape and see whether it can make changes that would improve lyric search results.”

It is currently unclear if Google has any plans on eventually removing their penalty on Rap Genius.

Created in 2009, Rap Genius is a site whose purpose is to serve as “your guide to the meaning of rap, R&B, and soul lyrics.” The site made headlines last year when it was revealed that venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz invested $15 million into Rap Genius.

MC Hammer Owes $800,000 In Back Taxes

The Feds have sued MC Hammer for nearly $800,000 in back taxes.

According to the unquestionable TMZ, it seems Stanley Kirk Burrell, aka M.C. Hammer, is being sued by the federal government for $798,033.48 in unpaid taxes. 

Hammer and his wife Stephanie apparently failed to file income tax claims in 1996 and 1997, and until the tab is paid, everything they earn through his LLC (Limited Liability Company) will go directly to the U.S. treasury. 

The last time Hammer dropped a project was a greatest hits album in 1996. Here's hoping he makes it out of this okay.

John Sculley spills the beans on firing Steve Jobs

The former Apple CEO, who fired Jobs in 1985, gave his most illuminating explanation ever of the move at a Forbes conference in Bali last week.

Former Apple CEO John Sculley, speaking at a Forbes conference in Bali last week, explains the circumstances behind his firing of Steve Jobs in 1985.

(Credit: Screenshot by CNET)

It's perhaps one of the most famous -- or infamous -- personnel moves in Silicon Valley history: then Apple CEO John Sculley's 1985 firing of Steve Jobs. But until now, we've never known much about how it happened.

At a Forbes conference in Bali last week, however, Sculley opened up about the firing, telling some of the richest and most powerful people on Earth just how he came to deliver Jobs' pink slip.

At the conference, Sculley spent eight minutes rehashing the infamous history after an audience member asked about it. "The ballroom then sat in rapt silence as Sculley delved into details," Forbes reported today, "cast blame, and reflected on lessons learned."

Essentially, Sculley told the crowd, it was the Apple board's fault for creating an environment in which Sculley, the former Pepsi wunderkind, and Jobs, who lured him away with the famous challenge to make a difference instead of spending his career with sugar water, clashed.

The main reason for that clash, Sculley recalled, was the introduction of the Macintosh Office in 1985. The second-gen Mac's launch had been panned, with critics calling the new computer a "toy," and ridiculing its small computing power.

 "Steve went into a deep depression," Sculley said. As a result, "Steve came to me and he said, 'I want to drop the price of the Macintosh and I want to move the advertising, shift a large portion of it away from the Apple 2 over to the Mac."

"I said, 'Steve, it's not going to make any difference. The reason the Mac is not selling has nothing to do with the price or with the advertising. If you do that, we risk throwing the company into a loss.' And he just totally disagreed with me."

"And so I said, "Well, I'm gonna go to the board. And he said, 'I don't believe you'll do it. And I said: Watch me."

Jobs' problems with the launch didn't come in a vacuum, Sculley explained. Already, Jobs had overseen a slew of product failures, including the Lisa and the Apple 3, and revenues from the Apple 2 were slowing considerably. The company needed a major new revenue source to get the Macintosh line where it needed to go. Sculley said that the board gave him the power to first ax Jobs as head of the Mac division, and then from the company altogether. And was it the right thing to do?

Sculley said he didn't have the business expertise at the time to fully understand what visionary leadership was. "What would have happened if we hadn't have had that showdown?...I did not have the breadth of experience at that time to really appreciate just how different leadership is when you are shaping an industry," Sculley said, "as Bill Gates did or Steve Jobs did, versus when you're a competitor in an industry, in a public company, where you don't make mistakes because if you lose, you're out."

Added Sculley at the conference in Bali, "My sense is that there could have been a different outcome."

Indeed, over the years, Sculley, like so many others, recognized Jobs' true genius as a leader. In 2011, for example, he called Jobs "the greatest CEO ever."

4 Of The 5 Highest-Paid Execs In The U.S. Work For Apple

Four out of the five highest-paid executives in the United States work for Apple, Bloomberg Businessweek reports, but not one of them is CEO Tim Cook. According to fiscal 2012 compensation figures for top earners filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Apple’s Bob Mansfield, Bruce Sewell, Jeffrey Williams, and Peter Oppenheimer join Oracle CEO Larry Ellison to make up the top five corporate earners last year.

Mansfield was the highest-paid Apple employee, receiving $85.5 million during 2012. He actually decided to leave the company last June, but was reportedly handed an “exorbitant” payout that convinced him to sign a new two-year deal. Mansfield came second only to Oracle’s Ellison, who earned $96.2 million.

Dangote To Build $8billion Oil Refinery

Another chapter will this year be opened in the downstream sector of the petroleum industry, when business mogul Alhaji Aliko Dangote kicks off his plan to establish a refinery in the country (Nigeria).

The federal government had, in 2011, granted approval to 19 multinationals for the setting up of private refineries in the country, but none of them has come on stream due to the regulation of the price of fuel in the country.

Though details of where the refinery will be sited and its capacity were yet to be made known, work on the refinery, which will cost $8 billion, will begin this year.

At a breakfast meeting with some senior editors to mark his 57th birthday in Lagos, Alhaji Dangote said work will start on the refinery once his company secured the final approval from the federal government.

While acknowledging the fact that only a mad businessman would consider establishing a refinery in Nigeria under the present uncertain business terrain of subsidising the downstream sector of the petroleum industry, Dangote pleaded with the government to allow market forces to determine the price of fuel to allow the private sector play a significant role in the industry.

“We are all aware that the federal government had issued 19 licences to the private sector to establish refineries in the country, but how many of them have come on stream? There is uncertainty in the sector and only a mad businessman will put up a refinery now, but we are set to do that,” he said.

Alhaji Dangote urged the federal government to put in place critical infrastructure in all sectors of the economy to kick-start its rapid development.

He said that with the country’s population expected to hit 200 million by 2015, there were no serious plans to take care of the huge population.

He also called on the government to diversify the economy by intensifying reforms in agriculture.