“It’s becoming more of a mainstream place for more financially focused” venture capitalists, said Carissa Christensen, Bryce’s founder and chief executive. “They are in it not because space is cool, but because they think this a place to generate serious return.”
.. For years, the industry was fueled by the vast fortunes of a few billionaires. Musk invested $100 million of his own money into SpaceX before capturing several billions of dollars in government contracts.
.. Last year, Jeffrey P. Bezos described the investment model for his space company, Blue Origin, this way: “I sell about $1 billion a year of Amazon stock, and I use it to invest in Blue Origin.”
.. Richard Branson has backed Virgin Galactic and a satellite company called OneWeb, while Paul Allen, the Microsoft co-founder, is building what would be the world’s largest airplane by wingspan to “air-launch” rockets.
.. More recently, Mark Cuban invested $500,000 into a company called Relativity Space, which plans to 3-D print an entire rocket. Astranis, which intends to use small satellites to beam Internet to places off Earth’s power grid, recently announced that it was being backed by Andreessen Horowitz, the Silicon Valley venture capital firm.
.. The growing market has also captured the interest of the Trump administration, which has vowed to expand the partnerships with the private sector that began under former presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama. During Thursday’s Cabinet meeting, Trump lauded SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy and took a shot at NASA, saying that if the government built a similar rocket, it “would have cost probably 40 or 50 times” what SpaceX charges.
Michael Dell Paid a Record $100.47 Million for Manhattan’s One57 Penthouse
Michael Dell was the buyer behind the $100.47 million purchase of a penthouse on Manhattan’s Billionaire’s Row, according to two people familiar with the deal. The transaction, which closed in 2014, holds the record for the most expensive home ever sold in New York City.
.. Located in One57, a more than 1,000-foot-tall glass tower on West 57th Street, the duplex apartment totals 10,923 square feet with six bedrooms and six bathrooms, according to an offering plan for the project.
.. It is the first and only property in the city to break the $100 million barrier, public records show, but that record is widely expected to be broken by the sale of a penthouse at a nearby project at 220 Central Park South, which has not yet closed.
.. Last year, Mr. Dell entered into contract to buy another penthouse in Boston. The property is in the Four Seasons Private Residences One Dalton Street and had been on the market for close to $40 million.
.. also bought a $10.9 million condo at Boston’s Millennium Tower in 2016, records show, following a $60 billion deal by his company to acquire EMC, based in Hopkinton, Mass.
Democrats’ behavior at the State of the Union was embarrassing
But the Democrats, with their childish protests, took the bait. Symbolic dissent is fine, but this was a cacophony of causes: black clothing (for #MeToo), kente ties and sashes (because of Trump’s Africa insult), butterfly stickers (for the “dreamers”), red buttons (for a victim of racial crime) and the more bipartisan purple ribbons (for the opioid epidemic).
Dozens of People Recount Pattern of Sexual Misconduct by Las Vegas Mogul Steve Wynn
Wynn Resorts employees and others described a CEO who sexualized his workplace and pressured workers to perform sex acts. Mr. Wynn responded: ‘The idea that I ever assaulted any woman is preposterous.’
.. Mr. Wynn, turning 76 on Saturday, is a towering figure in Las Vegas and the wider gambling industry. As builder of the Mirage, Treasure Island, Bellagio, Wynn and Encore casinos in Las Vegas—lavish, multiuse resorts with features such as artificial volcanoes, dancing fountains and French chefs—he brought a new level of sophistication and scale to the Strip.
.. Mr. Wynn no longer owns the Mirage, Treasure Island or Bellagio, but his empire now includes two casinos bearing his name in the Chinese gambling enclave of Macau, and he is building a $2.4 billion Wynn casino in the Boston area. He is the chairman and chief executive of Wynn Resorts.
.. Mr. Wynn owns nearly 12% of Wynn Resorts, a stake worth $2.4 billion, and is considered integral to its success. His signature is the company logo. In a recent securities filing citing possible risks to the business, the company said, “If we lose the services of Mr. Wynn, or if he is unable to devote sufficient attention to our operations for any other reason, our business may be significantly impaired.”
.. Mr. Wynn is a regular on his casino floors, known for a keen attention to details and what employees say is a temper that can flare when they fall short. He has frequently had services such as manicures, massages and makeup application performed in his on-site office at the Wynn Las Vegas.
.. Former employees said their awareness of Mr. Wynn’s power in Las Vegas, combined with the knowledge that the jobs they held were among the best-paying available there, added up to a feeling of dependence and intimidation when Mr. Wynn made requests of them.
Some said that feeling was heightened at times by the presence in a confined office space of one or more of his German shepherds, trained to respond to commands in German.
.. Former employees said they sometimes entered fake appointments in the books to help other female workers get around a request for services in Mr. Wynn’s office or arranged for others to pose as assistants so they wouldn’t be alone with him. They told of female employees hiding in the bathroom or back rooms when they learned he was on the way to the salon.
.. he would continually adjust a towel to expose himself. Then at one session, she said, he threw it off and said, “Just get this thing off of me.”
.. She said he wouldn’t let her use a towel to cover his genitals after that, contrary to state licensing regulations, and he also began rubbing her leg while she massaged him.
.. After a few weeks, the former employee said, Mr. Wynn instructed her to massage his penis to climax. The woman said that because he was her boss, she felt she had no choice but to agree to some of Mr. Wynn’s requests, including that one. She said masturbating him became a frequent part of the massage sessions for several months.
.. In subsequent sessions, the woman said, Mr. Wynn asked her to perform oral sex on him and described in detail how he wanted it done. This request she refused, she said.
.. Dennis Gomes, who was an executive at the Golden Nugget in Las Vegas when Mr. Wynn was running that casino decades ago, said in a deposition in an early-1990s lawsuit that Mr. Gomes “routinely received complaints from various department heads regarding Wynn’s chronic sexual harassment of female employees,” according to a court filing that summarized his testimony.
.. Mr. Gomes described what he called a “disgraceful pattern of personal and professional conduct” that he said included Mr. Wynn’s directing him to get the home phone numbers of casino cocktail waitresses.
.. The employee and the supervisor said they sought to manage the situation rather than report it because they believed there would be repercussions if they did.
.. a woman who was a salon manager at the time said she filed a written report to human resources. She said she got a call from an executive, Doreen Whennen, castigating her for filing to HR and saying she should have taken the matter directly to Ms. Whennen.
.. Ms. Wynn, who is a co-founder and former board member of Wynn Resorts, is seeking to free herself from restrictions on the control of her estimated $1.9 billion of stock that were imposed by a 2010 agreement with Mr. Wynn.