Work for Apple or Disney — from home; Starbucks is eating itself

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Apple and Disney want you to work from home: Apple recently posted dozens of "home advisor" customer service jobs (one of the job requirements: a comfy chair) and Disney’s looking for part-time guest services representatives. The positions emerge as the work-from-home debate heats up, with businesses like IBM, Aetna, and Reddit retreating on remote work policies. Although research has found telecommuters can actually be more productive, many companies feel it doesn’t foster collaboration. ? Share your thoughts: #RemoteWorkers

There are now so many Starbucks stores in the US they're cannibalizing each other's business, says BMO Capital Markets. The coffee giant is adding more stores at an incredible clip and currently has some 8,000 in the US — but there are fewer transactions per store so far this year. The company is also rapidly expanding in China, opening more than a store per day. The country's rising middle class means the premium coffee market has ballooned, and Starbucks captured 3/4 of sales in 2014.  ? Share your thoughts: #StarbucksGrowth

Is Wall Street outpacing Silicon Valley on gender equality? Recent analysis by Axios suggests it is — barely. A survey of company data from the biggest banks and tech companies found that women hold 25.5% of leadership positions on Wall Street and 24.8% in tech. Overall, major banks employ almost as many women (48.4%) as men, while women hold 33.2% of roles within big tech companies. ? Share your thoughts: #WallStreetVsTech

Americans aren’t cooking anymore. More than half of US households’ monthly food budget is spent on products and services that don’t require cooking. (The trend is most extreme for millennials, who spend 42% of their monthly food budget on meals prepared outside the home.) One major culprit for the decline in home-cooked meals is sheer busyness — “today’s on-the-go culture in which people feel so pressed for time they rarely leave their desks for lunch anymore.” It’s both a challenge and opportunity for the growing $2.2 billion meal kit market: Companies like Blue Apron, HelloFresh, and now Amazon, are betting meal kits are more convenient than cooking from scratch (even if they’re not as easy as getting takeout). ? Share your thoughts: #Cooking

Hackers are shutting down factories. A growing number of cybercriminals are targeting factories for ransom, knowing that the industry’s time-sensitive nature puts pressure on companies to pay up. “if we don’t make our product in time, that means Toyota doesn’t make their product in time, which means they don’t have a car to sell on the lot that next day. It’s that tight,” says John Peterson, AW North Carolina’s IT manager. The factory was hit with malware last year, with the potential to lose $270,000 in revenue, plus employee wages, for every hour it was out of commission. ? Share your thoughts: #FactoriesHackers

It’s official: Facebook TV is coming. The social network announced its biggest jump into video, a YouTube competitor called Watch that will offer an assortment of programs, from short clips to scripted series to live sports. The company has partnered with content creators like BuzzFeed, ATTN, Condé Nast, National Geographic, and Major League Baseball. Watch presents an enticing opportunity for Facebook to lure viewers — and advertisers — particularly as consumers move away from traditional TV. ? Share your thoughts: #FacebookWatch

Idea of the Day: Ever wish your boss came with a user manual? Global Citizen Year Abby Falik actually did create her own user manual — and so did everyone on her leadership team. She writes one every year, not only to give employees insight into how she works, but also to self-reflect. She even uses the manual as an opportunity to collect feedback from others.

“It’s a living document that describes my innate wiring and my growing edge, while putting it out to the world that I know I am – and aim to always be -- a work-in-progress.”

What's your take? Join the conversations on today's stories: #RemoteWorkers | #StarbucksGrowth | #WallStreetVsTech | #Cooking | #FactoriesHackers

From earlier: #FacebookWatch

— Katie Carroll / Share this using #DailyRundown