After less than a year in retirement, Bob Iger has returned as the CEO of the Walt Disney Company.

The company’s board has sent out a notice that Bob I. is back and the recently re-upped Bob Chapek is out. “I am deeply honored to be asked to again lead this remarkable team, with a clear mission focused on creative excellence to inspire generations through unrivaled, bold storytelling,” Iger wrote tonight in an email to staffers.

Having handed over the baton as CEO in February 2020 to Chapek — a stunning move unto itself at the time — and then serving as executive chairman until the end of 2021, Iger will be CEO for a second time for the next two years, the company says. His mission will also include identifying a successor, something Iger had difficulty doing while commanding the troops the last time, postponing multiple plans to step down during his 15 years in the top job, the final stage of a 47-year run at Disney.

“The board has concluded that as Disney embarks on an increasingly complex period of industry transformation, Bob Iger is uniquely situated to lead the company through this pivotal period,” said board chair Susan Arnold in the official announcement (read it below), just a couple of weeks after a rougher-than-expected quarterly earnings report by the company. Once a overachiever buoyed by success in streaming, Disney’s stock has recently sunk to a multi-year low after executives warned of weak revenue and profit gains in the year to come and also hefty expenses for streaming. The company’s shares have lost roughly 40% in 2022 to date.

In the email to employees, Iger said shared the news of his return “with an incredible sense of gratitude and humility—and, I must admit, a bit of amazement.” Providing no details on the re-hire that came together very quickly over the past few day, the once and now again CEO added that Disney “holds a special place in the hearts of people around the globe thanks to you, and your dedication to this company and its mission to bring joy to people through great storytelling is an inspiration to me every single day.” The communique didn’t acknowledge Chapek, with whom Iger reportedly had a rocky relationship since the transition of power.

Given the considerable turbulence experienced by Disney since Iger left the corner office, and also given his well-earned reputation for being as smooth and diplomatic a leader as Chapek could be an awkward and blithe one, Iger was repeatedly asked if he would consider an encore. He always steadfastly refused, recently citing his new phase as an investor and industry observer with a lot more time on his hands. At 71 years old, though, he is certainly not at what is considered automatic retirement age in a business sector where many CEOs are active into their 80s and beyond. Rupert Murdoch, coincidentally one of Disney’s largest shareholder, is 91 and still chair of Fox Corp. and executive chair of News Corp.

“I don’t miss my job,” Iger declared during a September sit-down at the Code conference. “Retirement is great, I have a vastly different life than before. Much more air in my day.”

No one ever took Iger’s denials all that seriously, considering that he was a top executive who had defied skeptics (including on the company’s board) when he took over for predecessor Michael Eisner and then gone on to preside over the acquisitions of Pixar, Marvel and Lucasfilm. His crowning M&A deal was the $71.3 billion purchase of most of 21st Century Fox in 2019, a transaction whose potential value is still in the process of being unlocked. (Watch this space, though, as Avatar sequel grosses come in next month, and Disney’s option to buy out Comcast’s Hulu stake is exercised.)

Chapek joined Disney in 1993 after a stint in the advertising business, going on to the company’s home entertainment and parks divisions before surprising most in the entire media and entertainment industry by getting the nod to become CEO. Kevin Mayer, who had steered strategic planning and then overseen the company’s streaming efforts and the successful launch of Disney+, was seen as a more likely successor than Chapek. Mayer wasn’t the only heir apparent to get passed over. Tom Staggs, who was a top exec and the designated CEO-in-waiting was eventually cut loose by Iger before his coronation. (Mayer and Staggs, their relationship forged in the fires of Burbank, now run Candle Media, an investment firm backed by private equity firm Blackstone.)

As Covid swept across the world in 2020, Chapek managed to keep Disney from disaster despite the complete closure of theme parks, movie theaters and live sports, gradually winning the guarded confidence of investors. He had rougher sledding over his final year in the top job. The company was facing an increasingly expensive and difficult slog in streaming, though Disney+ continued to be a growth engine. Chapek also presided over the explosive situation in Florida involving the company’s efforts to head off the state’s “Don’t Say Gay” legislation. The company’s opposition to the bill led to retribution by Gov. Ron DeSantis, who mocked the company as “woke Disney,” prompting waves of negative attention from conservative media. Internally, many employees were stung by what they viewed as a betrayal. Iger had tweeted his opposition to the bill before Chapek did, and he indicated in press interviews that he believed the company and its leadership could have spoken out against the legislation more expeditiously. Workers held widespread walkouts to express their feelings about how Disney had handled the whole affair, and winning back their trust became an uphill battle for Chapek.

“We were reminded, through the passion of our cast’s reaction, how important their sentiments are on these issues,” Chapek recalled last month at a Wall Street Journal conference. The lesson he learned about navigating thorny political matters? “Stick to your values, to your north star. Simplify the cacophony of voices out there and do what you think is right.”

Another misstep, which many in the industry believed would never have happened on his predecessor’s watch, was publicly clashing with Scarlett Johansson over the release of Black Widow. The Marvel movie had gone out through the Premier Access window (a Chapek innovation during the pandemic that hasn’t been used in more than a year), meaning it was available for an extra charge on Disney+ at the same time it hit theaters. The actress sued over breach of contract, saying the method of release had cost her tens of millions in back-end payments. Disney hit back hard, calling Johansson’s suit “especially sad and distressing in its callous disregard for the horrific and prolonged global effects of the Covid-19 pandemic.”

While the suit was settled a few weeks later, the fight — and particularly the sharp-clawed statement aimed at an A-list star — became a significant talking point in the company’s overall dealings with talent. Chapek also abruptly dismissed TV chief Peter Rice with minimal explanation, a move that similarly unsettled the creative community.

Even in the company’s parks unit, which he once ran, Chapek courted controversy with price hikes and a wave of complex, interlocking new offerings like Lightning Lanes, Disney Genie and Disney Magic Key. He also infamously blamed an “unfavorable attendance mix” for limiting parks’ profitability, riling some Magic Key holders, who figured he was talking about them because they don’t spend as much.

Read the shocking official announcement here:

The Walt Disney Company (NYSE: DIS) announced today that Robert A. Iger is returning to lead Disney as Chief Executive Officer, effective immediately. Mr. Iger, who spent more than four decades at the Company, including 15 years as its CEO, has agreed to serve as Disney’s CEO for two years, with a mandate from the Board to set the strategic direction for renewed growth and to work closely with the Board in developing a successor to lead the Company at the completion of his term. Mr. Iger succeeds Bob Chapek, who has stepped down from his position. 

“We thank Bob Chapek for his service to Disney over his long career, including navigating the company through the unprecedented challenges of the pandemic,” said Susan Arnold, Chairman of the Board. “The Board has concluded that as Disney embarks on an increasingly complex period of industry transformation, Bob Iger is uniquely situated to lead the Company through this pivotal period.”

“Mr. Iger has the deep respect of Disney’s senior leadership team, most of whom he worked closely with until his departure as executive chairman 11 months ago, and he is greatly admired by Disney employees worldwide–all of which will allow for a seamless transition of leadership,” she said.

The position of Chairman of the Board remains unchanged, with Ms. Arnold serving in that capacity.

“I am extremely optimistic for the future of this great company and thrilled to be asked by the Board to return as its CEO,” Mr. Iger said. “Disney and its incomparable brands and franchises hold a special place in the hearts of so many people around the globe—most especially in the hearts of our employees, whose dedication to this company and its mission is an inspiration. I am deeply honored to be asked to again lead this remarkable team, with a clear mission focused on creative excellence to inspire generations through unrivaled, bold storytelling.”

During his 15 years as CEO, from 2005 to 2020, Mr. Iger helped build Disney into one of the world’s most successful and admired media and entertainment companies with a strategic vision focused on creative excellence, technological innovation and international growth. He expanded on Disney’s legacy of unparalleled storytelling with the acquisitions of Pixar, Marvel, Lucasfilm and 21st Century Fox and increased the Company’s market capitalization fivefold during his time as CEO. Mr. Iger continued to direct Disney’s creative endeavors until his departure as Executive Chairman last December, and the Company’s robust pipeline of content is a testament to his leadership and vision.


https://deadline.com/2022/11/disney-bob-iger-returns-ceo-bob-chapek-out-1235178223/

Maybe Bitcoin is all we really need. "Fix the money, fix the world".

“Demographic shifts” can mean many things. The composition of a body of people—median age, ethnic makeup, and more—all fall into the category.

But in the context of the labor shortage that has gripped the world economy since the pandemic began, it has coincided with one of Elon Musk’s big worries: The world isn’t having enough babies.

He has previously said the world’s declining birth rate is “one of the biggest risks to civilization,” which will “crumble” if the world doesn’t have more children. Now two major employment websites, Indeed and Glassdoor, are looking forward to 2023’s workforce (and well beyond that) to predict whether the “demographic shifts” of the last few years will continue. In short, yes—and it means the labor shortage is here to stay for a while.

Using World Bank projections and analyzing employment trends across several countries, economists for both job sites found the number of people of working age (15 to 65) is set to decline in the coming years. That means hiring will be more difficult and workers will have more leverage over employers.

The decline in people of working age will partly stem from an aging population, the number of deaths exceeding births, and reduced immigration. For example, the U.S. and U.K.'s population growth will be driven solely by net migration. And in the U.K., deaths are projected to exceed births by 2025.

The U.S., U.K., France, and Canada are all projected to see their working-age population decline by more than 3% from 2026 to 2036.

Meanwhile, during that same period, Germany is projected to see a decline of more than 7%—driven by its aging population and migration trends that haven’t returned to pre-pandemic levels.

Additionally, the report said Japan’s demographic prospects are “particularly stark,” with its population forecasted to fall from 128 million in 2010 to below 100 million by 2050—and the share of those ages 65 and older will soar.

“Without sustained immigration, an increase in labor productivity, or a focus on attracting workers on the sidelines of the labor force, these countries simply won’t have enough workers to fill long-term demand for years to come,” Indeed and Glassdoor’s chief economist wrote in a foreword to the report.

So despite warnings of a looming recession, and a potential decline in “employers’ hiring appetites,” finding candidates will be a challenge—giving way for workers to demand higher pay, stronger benefits, and flexible schedules.

“In a moment like this, with so many headlines about layoffs, it perhaps feels a little bit weird to talk about long-term hiring challenges,” Aaron Terrazas, chief economist at Glassdoor, told Bloomberg. “But the reality is, it is precisely in moments like this when it's easy to lose the trees for the forest. It’s easy to conflate the near-term cyclical with long-term structural challenges in the labor market.”

But a declining birth rate isn’t necessarily bad news despite the hiring challenges it may present. It’s often a sign of economic progress: Women have more opportunities to choose their own path in life, whether it’s prioritizing school, a career, or a life without children at all.

While some demographers worry alongside Musk that this could create a workforce crisis down the line, it doesn’t have to come to that if society adjusts properly. This may vary from country to country depending on their economies, but it's at least the case in the U.S., as Christine Percheski, associate professor of sociology at Northwestern University, told Insider last year, the country would need to make structural adjustments like creating new policies that accommodate changes in population size.

Besides—while U.S. birth rates hit a record low during the pandemic, a new study from the Economic Bureau of Research found that there was a COVID “baby bump” after all. Whether this will hold steady is unclear, but it shouldn’t matter for the workforce if we shift our mindsets to view a lack of labor as more of a new norm than a shortage and adjust accordingly.

That might begin with paying attention to employees’ changing wants and needs. They care more about a company’s culture and its diversity and inclusivity initiatives, the report found. So to stay competitive in a challenging labor market, employers have to keep up with workers’ demands.

“Beyond a competitive wage, offering employees top-notch benefits, positive, engaging company culture, and commitment to DEI initiatives will remain incredibly important to help win talent in a competitive and changing labor market,” the report said.



https://news.yahoo.com/world-baby-shortfall-bad-labor-190124685.html

The European Union may be stepping up its regulatory actions in the privacy sector.

Key Takeaways

• The European Union reportedly has plans to restrict or ban the use of privacy coins in its jurisdiction.
• The thinking behind the potential ban appears to be primarily concerned with money laundering.
• As on-chain surveillance becomes more sophisticated and legislators on both sides of the Atlantic become increasingly vigilant, the case for privacy-preserving cryptocurrencies is ever more apparent.

The European Union is said to be mulling a ban on privacy coins, including Monero (XMR), Zcash (ZEC), and Dash (DASH).

Leaked Document

EU legislators are working on an anti-money laundering policy proposal prohibiting banks and crypto providers from interacting with privacy coins, according to an anonymous EU diplomat who reportedly revealed the plans to CoinDesk.

If enacted, the policy would effectively blacklist a host of popular cryptocurrencies, including Monero (XMR), Zcash (ZEC), and Dash (DASH).

In March, the European Parliament forwarded legislation to impede transactions between exchanges and unhosted wallets. The parliament now seems prepared to escalate restrictions against anonymity in crypto.

In a draft of the legislative proposal dated November 9, initially reported by CoinDesk, the body said: “Credit institutions, financial institutions and crypto-asset service providers shall be prohibited from keeping…anonymity-enhancing coins.”

The draft is believed to have been drafted by Czech officials and has since been shared among its 26 member states. As of yet, the privacy-busting proposal has yet to be made official.

Privacy In Trouble?

Earlier this month, Crypto Briefing spoke with Zcash CEO Josh Swihart to gain an insider perspective on the challenges and opportunities within the privacy coin sector. Swihart told us that public blockchains are a serious security risk for individual users and corporations.

“If I’m a business accepting cryptocurrency natively, not through a third-party intermediary, I can’t afford to let my competitors see all of that [personal] information,” said Swihart. “Not only the information about my business—what’s coming in and out—but information about my customers who may be transacting with me online or using cryptocurrency. So I expect there to be a tipping point where there’ll be a flood of demand.”

Swihart expects that the demand for privacy coins will become increasingly urgent as “now you have all kinds of crypto surveillance companies, Chainalysis and others, that are not only tracking transactions in order to look at flows, but they tag addresses.”

It is possible that regulators and ever more sophisticated on-chain surveillance could catalyze increased demand for privacy coins. Ironically, regulators could argue for privacy coins rather than kill them off.  

That’s a lesson that might apply equally to regulators in the US. The recent blacklisting of Tornado Cash by the US Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) is one such example.

“There’s healthy concern about the direction in which regulatory conversations have been going,” Swihart told us. “I think what OFAC did was a massive overreach.”

https://cryptobriefing.com/eu-moving-to-ban-privacy-coins-report/

Earlier this month, Crypto Briefing spoke with Zcash CEO Josh Swihart to gain an insider perspective on the challenges and opportunities within the privacy coin sector. Swihart told us that public blockchains are a serious security risk for individual users and corporations.

How do you see governments making use of the blockchain technology in a few years?

Countries that import valuable military equipment from geopolitical rivals of the United States, particularly China and Russia, plausibly face a heightened risk of U.S. sanctions. In 2017, then-President Trump signed the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act, providing for sanctions on entities that transact with the Russian defense sector. In 2020, President Trump issued Executive Order 13959, establishing financial sanctions against certain Chinese military companies. As previously discussed, entities that transact with sanctioned entities face the risk of secondary sanctions, so importing military goods from China or Russia raises the importer’s sanctions risk.

As a risky asset, Bitcoin has historically not exhibited a flight to safety effect; Bitcoin’s price tends to fall during periods of economic turmoil. Indeed, Figure 25 shows that Bitcoin declined concurrent with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. However, the figure also shows that Bitcoin sharply appreciated immediately following the US Treasury’s sanctions against the Central Bank of Russia. Therefore, the decentralized nature of Bitcoin may provide some insurance value against deglobalization shocks, such as the disruption caused by sanctions. This hypothesis is consistent with Aysan et al. (2019), who find that Bitcoin hedges geopolitical risks.

• Crypto bridges, which link blockchain networks together, have become major targets for cybercriminals.
• A total of around $1.4 billion has been lost to breaches on cross-chain bridges this year, according to figures from blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis.
• The biggest incident was the record $615 million haul snatched from Ronin, a bridge supporting the popular nonfungible token game Axie Infinity.

Crypto investors have been hit hard this year by hacks and scams. One reason is that cybercriminals have found a particularly useful avenue to reach them: bridges.

Blockchain bridges, which tenuously connect networks to enable the fast swaps of tokens, are gaining popularity as a way for crypto users to transact. But in using them, crypto enthusiasts are bypassing a centralized exchange and using a system that’s largely unprotected.

A total of around $1.4 billion has been lost to breaches on these cross-chain bridges since the start of the year, according to figures from blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis. The biggest single event was the record $615 million haul snatched from Ronin, a bridge supporting the popular nonfungible token game Axie Infinity, which lets users earn money as they play.

There was also the $320 million stolen from Wormhole, a crypto bridge backed by Wall Street high-frequency trading firm Jump Trading. In June, Harmony’s Horizon bridge suffered a $100 million attack. And last week, almost $200 million was seized by hackers in a breach targeting Nomad.



Image link:  https://i.ibb.co/bX4rdnj/bridge.jpg

“Blockchain bridges have become the low-hanging fruit for cyber-criminals, with billions of dollars worth of crypto assets locked within them,” said Tom Robinson, co-founder and chief scientist at blockchain analytics firm Elliptic, in an interview. “These bridges have been breached by hackers in a variety of ways, suggesting that their level of security has not kept pace with the value of assets that they hold.”

The bridge exploits are occurring at a striking rate, considering it’s such a new phenomenon. According to Chainalysis data, the amount stolen in bridge heists accounts for 69% of funds stolen in crypto-related hacks so far in 2022.

How bridges work

A bridge is a piece of software that allows someone to send tokens out of one blockchain network and receive them on a separate chain. Blockchains are the distributed ledger systems that underpin various cryptocurrencies.

When swapping a token from one chain onto another — as in sending some ether from ethereum to the solana network — an investor deposits the tokens into a smart contract, a piece of code on the blockchain that enables agreements to execute automatically without human intervention.

That crypto then gets “minted” on a new blockchain in the form of a so-called wrapped token, which represents a claim on the original ether coins. The token can then be traded on a new network. That can be useful for investors using ethereum, which has become notorious for sudden spikes in fees and longer wait times when the network is busy.

“They usually hold tremendous amounts of money,” said Adrian Hetman, tech lead at crypto security firm Immunefi. “Those amounts of money, and how much traffic goes through bridges, are a very enticing point of attack.”

Why they’re under attack

The vulnerability of bridges can be traced in part to sloppy engineering.

The hack on Harmony’s Horizon bridge, for example, was possible because of the limited number of validators that were required for approving transactions. Hackers only needed to compromise two out of a total of five accounts to obtain the passwords necessary for withdrawing funds.

A similar situation occurred with Ronin. Hackers only needed to convince five out of nine validators on the network to hand over their private keys to gain access to crypto locked inside the system.

In Nomad’s case, the bridge was much simpler for hackers to manipulate. Attackers were able to enter any value into the system and then withdraw funds, even if there weren’t enough assets deposited in the bridge. They didn’t need any programming skills, and their exploits led copycats to pile in, leading to the eighth-largest crypto theft of all time, according to Elliptic.

Nomad is offering hackers a bounty of up to 10% to retrieve user funds and says it will abstain from pursuing legal action against any hackers who return 90% of the assets they took.

Nomad told CNBC it’s “committed to keeping its community updated as it learns more” and “appreciates all those who acted quickly to protect funds.”

Why they’re important

Bridges are an essential tool in the decentralized finance (DeFi) industry, which is crypto’s alternative to the banking system.

With DeFi, instead of centralized players calling the shots, the exchanges of money are managed by a programmable piece of code called a smart contract. This contract is written on a public blockchain, such as ethereum
 or solana, and it executes when certain conditions are met, negating the need for a central intermediary.

“We cannot simply move those assets,” Hetman said. “That’s why we need blockchain bridges.”

As the DeFi space continues to evolve, developers will need to make blockchains interoperable to ensure that assets and data can flow smoothly between networks.

“Without them, assets are locked on native chains,” said Auston Bunsen, co-founder of QuikNode, which provides blockchain infrastructure to developers and companies.

But they’re risky.

“They’re effectively ungoverned,” said David Carlisle, head of regulatory affairs at Elliptic. They’re “very vulnerable to hacks, or to being used in crimes like money laundering.”

Criminals have transferred at least $540 million worth of ill-gotten gains through a bridge called RenBridge since 2020, according to new research that Elliptic provided to CNBC.

“One major question is whether bridges will become subject to regulation, since they act a lot like crypto exchanges, which are already regulated,” Carlisle said.

This week the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, or OFAC, announced sanctions against Tornado Cash, a popular cryptocurrency mixer, banning Americans from using the service. Mixers are tools that blend a user’s tokens with a pool of other funds to conceal the identities of individuals and entities involved.

Carlisle said it’s becoming evident that “U.S. regulators are prepared to go after DeFi services that facilitate illicit activity.”


https://www.cnbc.com/2022/08/10/hackers-have-stolen-1point4-billion-this-year-using-crypto-bridges.html

i actually learn fighters, the team and even their family members are not allowed to bet on UFC bouts, i think was part of the code of conduct.

Holly Holm's team won 'six figure' sum betting on their fighter

MELBOURNE, Australia — Members of Holly Holm’s support team won a "six figure" sum by betting on their fighter defeating Ronda Rousey at UFC 193.

Holm stunned Rousey with a second-round knockout in the main event at Etihad Stadium, an upset described as the greatest in UFC history.

With Las Vegas bookies offering odds of 10-1 and above for a Holm victory, several members of her camp pooled their resources together to place a wager, according to her manager Lenny Fresquez.

"I am sorry Vegas. You shouldn't have put the odds so high," Fresquez told USA TODAY Sports, while admitting that the sum exceeded six figures. "It was couple of our team members. We had a good pot together so it was nice. I wish I would have (placed) more money."

https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/ufc/2015/11/15/holly-holm-upsets-ronda-rousey-bet-wins-six-figure-sum/75821580/

Report: Ex-UFC fighter Tae Hyun Bang gets jail time for involvement in fight-fixing scheme

Tae Hyun Bang was sentenced to 10 months by the Seoul Central District Court for taking $92,610 (100 million won in South Korea) to throw a fight against Leo Kuntz at UFC Fight Night 79 in Seoul in November 2015, according to the Korea Herald. Three people who gave the money to Bang also got jail terms.

https://www.mmafighting.com/2017/11/24/16697172/report-ex-ufc-fighter-tae-hyun-bang-gets-jail-time-for-involvement-in-fight-fixing-scheme

We would be pure electric and maybe electric/hydrogen hybrids.

Pretty easy fix if the rich were willing to do it.

Before people switch to these exotic vehicles, there's one thing that should be tried first - public transportation. If a car weighs over 1 ton and a human weighs 70kg, then most of the energy is wasted on moving the car rather than moving the human. But a bus that carries 20 people weighs less than 20 cars, so the net use of fuel is lower in society that prefers public trasport. Especially since there's electricity-driven public trasport, while electric cars are still in their early days.

The Biden administration, through the US Department of Energy (DOE), today announced that applications are now open to states, tribes, and utilities to tap into $13 billion in new financing opportunities for the expansion and modernization of the US power grid.

The Grid Resilience Innovative Partnership (GRIP) program and the Transmission Facilitation Program are funded by the Biden administration’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.

Together, the two programs represent the largest single direct federal investment in critical transmission and distribution infrastructure. It’s also one of the first down payments on a more than $20 billion investment under the Biden administration’s Building a Better Grid Initiative.

The White House also announced a $2.3 billion program that funds grid resilience investments by states and tribes to reduce impacts due to extreme weather and natural disasters.

According to the DOE, independent estimates show that the US needs to expand electricity transmission systems by 60% by 2030, and may even need to triple current capacity by 2050 to accommodate a rapidly increasing supply of clean energy and meet growing power demand for EVs and electric home heating, as well as reduce power outages from severe weather due to climate change.

US Secretary of Energy Jennifer M. Granholm said:



https://electrek.co/2022/11/18/white-house-modernize-the-us-power-grid/

Naka Yuji, best known for creating the iconic “Sonic the Hedgehog” game, was arrested by the Tokyo District Public Prosecutors Office Friday on charges of insider trading. 

According to an official announcement by investigators, Naka allegedly obtained sensitive information regarding a new game for smartphones in the popular “Dragon Quest” series in January 2020, while employed by major game maker Square Enix. The game was being developed by Square Enix and online game production company Aiming. 

Prior to the announcement of the information, Naka allegedly purchased 10,000 shares of Aiming stock for approximately JPY2.8 million ($20,000), a violation of the Financial Instruments and Exchange Law.   

Two other men, a former Square Enix employee and his acquaintance, have also been arrested for pre-announcement purchases of Aiming shares. It is not yet known whether any of the trio sold their stock.     

Now aged 57, Naka was working for Sega in the late 1980s when he came up with the idea for the “Sonic” game as a competitor for the mega-hit “Super Mario” game series. Released in 1991, “Sonic” became a breakthrough for Sega, enabling it to grab a majority market share from rival Nintendo.

Naka, however, felt that he was not being properly credited for his contribution to the company’s bottom line and quit to join the American Sega Technical Institute. There he continued to develop new iterations of the “Sonic” game but, after reconciling with the parent company, returned to Japan in 1994. 

In 2006, Naka left Sega to launch his own game company, Prope, making games for the Nintendo Wii device. In 2016, he joined Square Enix, but left the company earlier in 2022 after he was removed as director of the game “Balan Wonderworld.” A lawsuit against his former employer followed, and, on Nov. 18, his arrest for insider trading.



https://variety.com/2022/gaming/news/sonic-the-hedgehog-naka-yuji-arrested-1235436767/