After facing a 12-month delay due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo are set to kick off from July 23 to August 8. In addition to hosting traditional sports like running and aquatics, some sports are being introduced for the first time (karate, skateboarding) or returning after an absence (baseball). One thing that many Olympic sports share in common? There are 17 different sports that use balls or spheres of some sort, ranging in size and weight....

This visual puts the current layoffs in the tech industry in context and ranks the 20 biggest tech layoffs of the 2020s using data from the tracker, Layoffs.fyi. The Top 20 Layoffs of the 2020s Since 2020, layoffs in the tech industry have been significant, accelerating in 2022 in particular. Here’s a look at the companies that laid off the most people over the last three years. Layoffs were high in 2020 thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic, halting the global economy and forcing staff reductions worldwide....

Given this sheer volume of choice, how do we ensure we’re making the right decisions, day in and day out, without becoming exhausted? Using insights from investor and thought leader Sahil Bloom, this graphic shares 10 cognitive razors, or rules of thumb, that can help you simplify your decision-making. We’ve organized Bloom’s favorite cognitive razors into three overarching categories, which we dive into in further detail below. Location, Location, Location The first theme is location, and the importance of being at the right place at the right time....

Tahoe Resources Inc. is a publicly traded company (TSX:THO /NYSE:TAHO) led by experienced mining professionals who are dedicated to the responsible production of precious metals in the Americas. The Escobal Project in Guatemala will contribute 2% to the country’s GDP when up and running. on Did you know that nearly one-fifth of all the gold ever mined is held by central banks? Besides investors and jewelry consumers, central banks are a major source of gold demand....

Sphere of Influence More than half of the people on Earth live within this circle The Chart of the Week is a weekly Visual Capitalist feature on Fridays. Back in 2013, a meme circulated quickly off of a Reddit post that showed the incredible population density of the southeast corner of Asia. You may have seen it: the satellite map showed, quite simply, that “more people live inside this circle, than outside of it”....

The Top 10 Millennial Brands [Charts] Tech continues to ascend the ranks, displacing traditional retail brands The Chart of the Week is a weekly Visual Capitalist feature on Fridays. The market for U.S. millennials is expected to blossom to $1.4 trillion by 2020, according to international consulting firm Accenture. While this generation of digital natives is already a primary marketing target today, in the upcoming years millennials will make up a hefty 30% of all retail spending in the country....

on Did you know that nearly one-fifth of all the gold ever mined is held by central banks? Besides investors and jewelry consumers, central banks are a major source of gold demand. In fact, in 2022, central banks snapped up gold at the fastest pace since 1967. However, the record gold purchases of 2022 are in stark contrast to the 1990s and early 2000s, when central banks were net sellers of gold....

The ultimate objective of the first Gigafactory is simple, but it is not for the faint of heart. Battery costs are the most expensive component of electric vehicles, and the multi-billion dollar Gigafactory aims to add scale, vertical integration, and other efficiencies together to bring lithium-ion battery costs down. Costs have already come down faster than most analysts have predicted, and the Gigafactory could be the final catalyst to get below the industry’s holy grail of $100 per kWh....

From Russia’s alleged role in the DNC hacks to this month’s revealing Vault 7 leak of nearly 9,000 CIA documents, it should now be clear that keeping data safe is of paramount importance for any organization. Leaks and hacks are causing irreparable damage across the board – and it is now more essential than ever before for individuals, organizations, and countries to be aware of common cybersecurity threats and how to prevent them....

If someone slipped you a $10,000 check and told you to invest it, what would you do with the money? With no strings attached, there is a wide variety of ways that you could deploy that cash. You could look at it as a one-time windfall that could shore up your personal balance sheet, or you could go at it much more aggressively. It’s money that you didn’t expect to receive, so why not throw it at high-risk, high-reward assets?...

In one fell swoop, the map below tells us a lot about the wealth, geopolitical influence, and natural resources of the region as well as parts of Central Asia. Many intricacies are also evident as well, which we will get to later on in this post. Top Export by Revenue in Middle East Economies We’ll start with the obvious: the number one export for many countries here is crude oil or related petroleum products....

Leaders from all over the world are currently gathering at the Conference of the Parties of the UNFCCC (COP 27) in Egypt to discuss climate action, and to negotiate the commitments being made by countries to the global climate agenda. This visualization based on data from the Global Carbon Project shows the changes in global fossil fuel carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions from 1900 to 2020, putting the challenge of fighting climate change into perspective....

Which regions are driving this growth? And is home fitness here to stay, or will it fade away when the pandemic is over? This graphic uses data from MoEngage and Apptopia to highlight the growth in home fitness apps across five different regions, representing 1.5 billion mobile app users. Note that the report uses data from Google’s Play Store and Apple’s App Store, so China was not included. Growth, by Number of Downloads Between Q1 and Q2 2020, health and fitness app downloads grew by 46% worldwide....

Due to their growing list of health benefits, the dominant conversation tends to center around the most abundant cannabinoids—cannabidiol (CBD) and tetrahydrocannabinol (THC). As a result, the cannabinoid market is estimated to reach almost $45 billion by 2024. But CBD and THC are just two cannabinoids out of over a hundred that have been discovered to date. Today’s graphic from Trait Biosciences explores the hidden potential of the lesser-known minor cannabinoids, and illustrates how they fare in comparison to their major counterparts....

Lately, the world’s biggest threats have been microscopic in size. From the global COVID-19 pandemic to wildfires ripping through the U.S. West Coast, it seems as though our lungs can’t catch a break, or more aptly, a breath. But just how small are the particles we’re currently battling? And how does their size compare to other tiny molecules? Specks Too Small to See While the coronavirus that causes COVID-19 is relatively small in size, it isn’t the smallest virus particle out there....

Platforms like Kickstarter or IndieGoGo have allowed aspiring entrepreneurs to get their ideas in front of millions, while generating invaluable amounts of buzz and publicity. Highly successful campaigns include products or proposals such as Ethereum, Oculus Rift, Pebble, or Star Citizen, which have combined to raise hundreds of millions of dollars in new capital. However, because crowdfunding is open to everyone, not every campaign brings home the bacon. In reality, some campaigns are just plain strange or border on being nonsensical in nature....

In a short amount of time, humans have changed the face of planet Earth. Our impact has been so profound, in fact, that scientists have declared the dawn of the Anthropocene epoch, or the age of human influence. Today’s ambitious graphic comes to us from Reldresal, and it looks at this human footprint from a number of different angles. Here are some of the ones we found most interesting....

A Look into the Venture Capital Industry Scaling a startup is not easy, even if it has high growth potential. To get the necessary capital, expertise, and experience to grow, sometimes tech founders look to venture capitalists to solve the problem. For the uninitiated, venture capital is financial capital raised by a group of investors for high-growth ventures in exchange for an equity stake in the company. The companies receiving this funding usually have a unique technology or business model that could have potential to make billions of dollars....

Imagine it’s the year 1960, and you’re an entrepreneur that’s about to launch the next big thing. Let’s assume that your product is actually pretty revolutionary, and that you’re going to receive widespread buzz and word-of-mouth traction. How quickly do you think it could be adopted by millions of users? Before the internet and consumption of digital goods, the use of a product could only spread as fast as you could manufacture the physical good....

Market Snapshot: September 2015 Deutsche Bank recently provided a graphical snapshot that covers the returns of a wide span of assets both YTD and since the mid-August meltdown. In addition, they added some market commentary on the situation investors find themselves in as they get back in gear for the autumn. First, let’s recap the spring and summer. Chinese markets started the year with gusto, but lost all of the gains during the summer as the bubble burst....