Microsoft Corporation, or often just MS, is an American multinational computer technology corporation with 79,000 employees in 102 countries and global annual revenue of US $51.12 billion as of 2007. It develops, manufactures, licenses and supports a wide range of software products for computing devices. Headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA, its best selling products are the Microsoft Windows operating system and the Microsoft Office suite of productivity software. These products have prominent positions in the desktop computer market, with market share estimates as high as 90% or more as of 2003 for Microsoft Office and 2006 for Microsoft Windows, in line with Bill Gates's vision "to get a workstation running our software onto every desk and eventually in every home".

Founded to develop and sell BASIC interpreters for the Altair 8800, Microsoft rose to dominate the home computer operating system market with MS-DOS in the mid-1980s. The company released an initial public offering (IPO) in the stock market, which, due to the ensuing rise of the stock price, has made four billionaires and an estimated 12,000 millionaires from Microsoft employees. Throughout its history the company has been the target of criticism for various reasons, including monopolistic business practices—both the U.S. Justice Department and the European Commission, among others, brought Microsoft to court for antitrust violations and software bundling.

Microsoft has footholds in other markets besides operating systems and office suites, with assets such as the MSNBC cable television network, the MSN Internet portal, and the Microsoft Encarta multimedia encyclopedia. The company also markets both computer hardware products such as the Microsoft mouse and home entertainment products such as the Xbox, Xbox 360, Zune and MSN TV. Known for what is generally described as a developer-centric business culture, Microsoft has historically given customer support over Usenet newsgroups and the World Wide Web, and awards Microsoft MVP status to volunteers who are deemed helpful in assisting the company's customers.

Moscow, the financial center of Russia

The economy of Russia has gradually transformed from a planned economy into a mixed market-oriented economy. It is classified by the World Bank as a high-income country. It has enormous allocations of natural resources, particularly in terms of Russian natural gas and oil reserves, and thus significant economic power exists in its exports. In 2023, it was the world's 11th -largest economy by nominal GDP, 6th-largest by purchasing power parity (PPP) according to IMF, and 5th-largest according to World Bank. But in 2024 it turned out that World Bank uses obsolete data and in fact Russia was 4th-largest by PPP since 2021 and ever since. Due to a volatile currency exchange rate, Russia's GDP as measured in dollars fluctuates sharply. Russia was the last major economy to join the World Trade Organization (WTO), becoming a member in 2012.

Russia's vast geography is an important determinant of its economic activity, with the country holding a large share of the world's natural resources. It has been widely described as an energy superpower; as it has the world's largest natural gas reserves, 2nd-largest coal reserves, 8th-largest oil reserves, and the largest oil shale reserves in Europe. It is the world's leading natural gas exporter, the 2nd-largest natural gas producer, the 2nd-largest oil exporter and producer and third largest coal exporter. Russia's foreign exchange reserves are the world's 5th-largest. It has a labour force of roughly 70 million people, which is the world's 7th-largest. Russia is the world's 3rd-largest exporter of arms. The oil and gas sector accounted up to roughly 34% of Russia's federal budget revenues, and up to 54% of its exports in 2021. ( Full article...)

"We close this chapter with a hint on the next discussion of resistance to randomness. Recall that Nero can be considered prosperous but not "very rich" by his day's standards. However, according to some strange accounting measure we will see in the next chapter, he is extremely rich on the average of lives he could have led-he takes so little risk in his trading career that there could have been very few disastrous outcomes. The fact that he did not experience John's success was the reason he did not suffer his downfall. He would be therefore wealthy according to this unusual (and probabilistic) method of accounting for wealth. Recall that Nero protects himself from the rare event. Had Nero had to relive his professional life a few million times, very few sample paths would be marred by bad luck-but, owning to his conservatism, very few as well would be affected by extreme good luck. That is, his life in stability would be similar to that an ecclesiastic clock repair-man. Naturally, we are discussing only his professional life, excluding his (sometimes volatile) private life.

Arguably, in expectation, a dentist is considerably richer than the rock musician who is driven in a pink Rolls Royce, the speculator who bids up the price of impressionist paintings, or the entrepreneur who collects private jets. For one cannot consider a profession without taking into account the average of the people who enter it, not the sample of those who have succeeded in it. We will examine the point later from the vantage point of the survivorship bias, but here, in Part I, we will look at it with respect to resistance to randomness."

— Nassim Taleb, Fooled by Randomness, 2001

• ... that Gerald Willis, after working as a bus driver at age 15, started a business that earned $2 million per year and built a replica of the Hermitage after watching The President's Lady?
• ... that Chicony, known primarily as a keyboard manufacturer, entered the computer-manufacturing business with the Rabbit 286 in 1988?
• ... that the creator of Comic Sans also designed a levitating man in a business suit?
• ... that the developer of Citizen Sleeper was inspired by the feeling of people coming together and their own experiences as a non-binary person struggling to make ends meet through the gig economy?
• ... that Dolly Johnson, who had once been a slave of 17th U.S. president Andrew Johnson, opened her own bakery business in 1881?
• ... that topics on Recess Therapy have included the economy, climate change, and peeing your pants?

July 11:

• 1930 - Trevor Storer, an English businessman, founder of Pukka Pies, was born on this day.

• ...that in the United States of America the largest reserve requirement for commercial banks is 10% of liabilities?

• ...that the United States Federal Reserve System uses six monetary aggregates as components of the money supply?

• ...that an open market operation is an activity by a central bank to buy or sell government bonds on the open market?

• ...that, although nominal USA national debt has been steadily increasing since 1940, Debt-to-GDP ratio was actually higher during WWII than it is now?

• ... that the United States debt ceiling has been steadily raised since 1981?

• ... the Federal Reserve owns the largest share of the USA national debt?

• ...the term petrodollars was coined by Ibrahim Oweiss to describe dollars that did not circulate inside the United States, and therefore were not part of the normal money supply, and instead were received by petroleum exporting countries ( OPEC) in exchange for oil?

Wikinews Economy and business portal

• July 21: Technological University Dublin senior lecturer Dr Lorcan Sirr speaks to Wikinews on housing market in Ireland
• July 15: California governor signs new state budget, eligible Californians to get stimulus payments
• July 4: 130 OECD countries agree to back global corporate tax rate
• June 30: 'Each makes the other more difficult to recover from': University of Sussex professor L. Alan Winters speaks to Wikinews on trade, COVID-19, Brexit
• June 16: Wikinews interviews Victor Kline, leader of newly registered The New Liberals party in Australia
• April 23: Irish Finance Minister Donohoe criticises OECD's global minimum corporate tax rate
• April 17: People protest in Berlin against German Court overturning five-year rent cap
• March 5: Chancellor Rishi Sunak announces UK budget 2021
• February 10: Disney to shut down Blue Sky Studios, animation studio behind 'Ice Age'
• January 24: World Trade Organization declares US tariff hike illegal, rules in South Korea's favour