Since Tate Modern opened further down the banks of the Thames in the millennium year, its senior partner, Tate Britain, has been rather overshadowed by the young upstart's skyrocket success – at one point the most successful public gallery in the world..

By comparison Tate Britain looked dusty and lost, its layout confusing, its galleries and public spaces under layers of alterations and paint, and its dingy subterraneancafe worthy of an eastern bloc works canteen.

Now, Tate Britain is set to reopen after a major £45m revamp. The work, by architects Caruso St John, has transformed the riverside part of the building once so despised, according to Tate director Sir Nicholas Serota said there was a serious proposal in the 1960s to demolish the lot and build a smart modernist block.

When the Tate originally opened in 1897, it was such a success that within six months the National Gallery was holding anxious meetings to discuss its falling visitor numbers, Serota said.

From the start, however, it needed to grow. It opened with architects' drawings on the walls showing the proposed next set of new galleries, and has been continuously altered and extended, often for the worse, ever since.

The latest revamp has been paid for by a major Heritage Lottery Fund grant and scores of donations from trusts, private donors, and members of the public – an effort that Tate chairman Lord Browne described as a model of how to achieve major projects through philanthropic giving.

Now light pours down from the new second floor high up in the dome, through a spectacular spiral staircase punched through the floor of the rotunda into the underworld, once a swamp and then the infamous Millbank penitentiary – the last stop in England for thousands of transported prisoners.

All the national collections are courting subscription-paying 'friends' with renewed fervour as government funding is steadily cut. Their beautiful new space at Tate Britain had been carved up into offices and meeting rooms since staff were driven out of the cellar offices in 1928 by a disastrous flood.

The cafe has been transformed with new windows provinging light and ventilation, and is now home to the subtlest of the new artworks incorporated in the building, a graphite drawing by Alan Johnson just deepening the shadow of the ceiling arches.

The famous restaurant, dubbed "the most amusing room in Europe", is polishing the wine glasses ready for its reopeningand will now feature locally sourced produce, although Camberwell artichokes and Epping butter – both renowned when it first opened – are trickier these days. "It will be just the same, but better," Tate Britain director Penelope Curtis promised.

There is a still work to do, including replacing the near defunct air conditioning in the south-west corner of the building, but Curtis said: "We're going to take a little break now, the public has been very patient with us."

One of the hidden glories of the building has been swept away in the work: the bath in the director's office, which was part of the partitioned and now restored Grand Saloon. Shockingly, this national treasure has not even been preserved among the million objects in the archives.

Serota, who once used the bath when he returned on an overnight flight from Los Angeles and had to go straight to a trustees' meeting, looked slightly troubled. "It wasn't actually avocado, but it was of that vintage - it was no great beauty, I assure you."

Summary: Spiral staircase rising from basement provides cafe with natural light for the first time as gallery seeks more private cash


In 1977, Toby Mott celebrated his 14th birthday in the Roxy in Covent Garden, London's now legendary punk club. He remembers "loud pounding darkness, cheap lager, the smell of cigarettes, sweat and piss… a few floors almost empty, like a kind of youth club".

Back then, he belonged to a gang of kids from Pimlico comprehensive that called themselves the ASA (Anarchist Street Army) and hung out daily in an independent record shop on nearby Wilton Road called Recordsville. There, he started buying seven-inch singles by the punk vanguard: "In the City" by the Jam, "New Rose" by the Damned, "White Riot" by the Clash, "Oh Bondage, Up Yours" by X-Ray Spex. There, too, he discovered the dubious delights of several second-division punk groups that have long since faded into obscurity, the likes of the Boys, the Cortinas, Eater, Headache, Slaughter and the Dogs, the Snivelling Shits…

Mott also started collecting fanzines, flyers and posters. "I'd go around to Recordsville when they were putting up new posters and nab the ones that had just been taken down. I'd go to Rough Trade or Beaufort Market in Chelsea and pick up flyers for gigs. Most of it was produced in such relatively small quantities for these specialist record shops. I knew, even then, that they had a certain value. They helped make you a serious punk."

Mott, who is now an artist and curator, has been collecting punk ephemera ever since, watching its value grow in the three decades since. An exhibition of his British punk paraphernalia, Loud Flash, opens at the Haunch of Venison gallery in London next month. It will also feature often inflammatory political ephemera from the time, including National Front recruitment posters that show just how much the extreme right, as well as the radical left, utilised punk graphics and imagery in their attempts to attract Britain's disenfranchised youth. "You could go to certain punk gigs, Sham 69, say, and were just as likely to be handed a National Front leaflet as an Anti-Nazi League one. It was a very aggressive and polarised political time, as well as a cultural one. Those ideas of the extreme were always in the room."

Mott thinks that punk has been misrepresented since, both by rock historians who have over-intellectualised its meaning and context, and by curators who over-emphasise its artistic links to previous avant-gardes. Ironically, the academic essays that accompany the exhibition fall into the same trap, calling up the Bauhaus, the Futurists, the Situationists, as well as Andy Warhol.

"Punk was what it was," says Mott. "It doesn't need all that. Jamie Reid, who created the Sex Pistols' posters, came from a radical 60s art-school background, and knew the history of disruptive art movements, but mostly it was kids in suburban bedrooms and garages with scissors, paste and photocopiers. The graphics sprang from the same place as the music, the do-it-yourself-and-do-it-now attitude that underpinned punk. It was an incredibly proactive time, the opposite of today's consumer-led pop culture. Everything was fast, aggressive, disposable, a furious outburst against the boredom of life in 70s Britain."

Mott's collection contains several rare Jamie Reid works, including a poster entitled "Never Mind the Bans", advertising the Sex Pistols' troubled British tour in 1977, when the group's notoriety was such that several town councils banned them from performing. There is work, too, by the artist Linder Sterling, who created the iconic artwork for the Buzzcocks' single "Orgasm Addict", and posters utilising the images of established music photographers like Pennie Smith and Kate Simon, both of whom helped create the outlaw mythology of the Clash.

What interests Mott most about his own collection, though, are what he calls "the anonymous artefacts" produced in small numbers by fired-up teenagers. To this end, he has included crudely made Xeroxed fanzines like Sniffin' Glue, Alternative Ulster, Ripped & Torn, London's Burning and the wonderfully named Chelmsford's Dead. "In a way, these are artefacts left over from a dead culture," says Mott, "but they speak more powerfully about what punk was really about, that moment of momentum and self-empowerment. It was not about making a profit or building a fucking brand. It seems odd now that the establishment were so threatened by it, but they were. You can't imagine a pop group today being a threat to the nation. Back then, we thought we were all about the future, but punk really was the last gasp of postwar radical culture."

Loud Flash: British Punk on Paper is at Haunch of Venison, London W1, from 24 Sep until 30 Oct

Summary: Never mind the bollocks? A new exhibition revives the artistic heritage of punk, writes Sean O'Hagan


Peter Saville is, he says, an extremely busy man. At 57, he is about to be awarded the prestigious London Design medal, recognition of his status as the UK's most famous graphic designer. The award brings with it "a lot of attention – I thought they were just going to give me a medal," he sighs.

He is also flying to New York for a Yohji Yamamoto show on which he has collaborated, despite his open contempt for contemporary fashion. He has emblazoned the collection with the words "Meaningless excitement" and "For further advice please contact our fashion advisors". Saville says Yamamoto didn't even flinch at what he calls his "slightly facetious stance".

To hear a man who has been so heavily involved in the industry – as well as Yamamoto, he has worked with Jil Sander, John Galliano, Christian Dior, Stella McCartney, Raf Simons and Kate Moss – claim the whole business is an exercise in "mass mind control and triviality that enslaves people to consumption" comes as a shock. Yet it is virtually the first thing Saville says to me when I walk into his studio/home in Clerkenwell, London.

It is not as if this is a great revelation, the cry of a man gradually disillusioned by life amid the rag trade's ugly swirl, he points out. Earlier this year he was asked to come up with a design to celebrate Lacoste's 80th birthday. "They said: 'Do anything you want, but don't touch the crocodile logo.' So that's what I did: destroyed the crocodile. Digitally shattered it in 80 different ways." He shows me the resulting shirts. "A completely fucked crocodile," he laughs. "I felt I had to do it because of this sort of brand obsession. People talk about brands and it's awful. You can sell anything with a logo on. That needed to be questioned."

The stuff about fashion turns out to be a characteristic Saville answer. It is both extremely long and a little contradictory. He may be celebrated for his work, but he claims he never really wanted to be a graphic designer in the first place, and in any case has "sort of retired or disengaged from" the job, apparently mortified by its commercial aspects. "I remember sitting in a meeting and there was an impasse, and the man at the head of the table said: 'Relax, we're all just here to make money.' Actually, I'm not here to make money. I'm here to try and make something better. The idea that people are only doing things to make money, and actually there are no values in it whatsoever, will adopt whatever position is necessary for that goal, that has nothing to do with what I ever did."

Given a retrospective show at the Design Museum in 2003, Saville says, he "put a piece on the wall that said: 'Be careful what you wish for'" and closed his studio. "I'm not running an agency," he says. "I don't have an agent, I'm not actually looking for work although I need to do a bit, because it's expensive and difficult being on the ground in London."

Retired or not, in 2013, his name is pretty much the only one in the field that might spark a flicker of recognition in someone who does not have membership of the Design Museum and an ongoing subscription to Creative Review. Yet the designs on which Saville's reputation rests are all between 25 and 35 years old: the diagram of a pulsar's radio waves on the cover of Joy Division's Unknown Pleasures and the stark photos of tombs on their album Closer and the single Love Will Tear Us Apart, that seemed to take on an eerie, precognitive power after the suicide of singer Ian Curtis; the die-cut replica of a floppy disc and the reappropriation of Henri Fantin-Latour's A Basket Of Roses that housed New Order's Power, Corruption and Lies. Furthermore, they are all record sleeves, "a dead art" that he says he had no interest in pursuing after the age of 30.

He is clearly enormously proud of his work in recent years as creative director to the city council of Manchester, his hometown. His explanation of what the job entailed is an epic, even by his standards – a fascinating and rather beautiful stream of tangential ideas that variously takes in the condition of the post-industrial city, how bankruptcy can turn your value system upside down, the difference between a waste of time and an abuse of time, Professor Brian Cox, the Manchester Art Treasures exhibition of 1857, how London isn't really the capital of Britain any more but "an independent city state", and the Labour MP and historian Tristram Hunt.

Alas, at the end of it, I have no idea of what he has actually done, beyond attending a lot of meetings and coming up with the phrase "Original Modern", which he apparently refused to allow the city to use as a slogan. The council ended his contract in 2011 and, with the best will in the world, you can see why.

It is all rather confusing, although in fairness, Saville seems as bewildered as I am. He's arrived at the interview with a series of handwritten notes, which seem to represent a concerted effort on his part to work out what he is, or thinks he is, or wants to be: despite referring to them, he keeps laughingly sinking his head into his hands as we talk.

His problems really began the moment he approached Tony Wilson at a Patti Smith gig in 1978, he says. Wilson was in the process of starting Factory Records, and Saville had been intrigued by record sleeves since buying the British edition of Kraftwerk's Autobahn. Factory spoilt him, he says. "It wasn't a company, it was an autonomous opportunity that just occurred for us in Manchester, manifested by Tony. He had a job in broadcasting, so he didn't need to make any money. It was what you'd call a folly, a collection of individuals doing exactly what they felt. No one was answerable to anyone."

The bands never told him what to design, he says. Joy Division were too busy trying to work out how to play their instruments, and when they regrouped after Curtis's death, New Order were too busy arguing with each other. "I was left to my own devices and it turned out that I had my own agenda. In no other circumstances would that happen. If I'd gone into any other kind of design practice, forget it."

It left him hopelessly underprepared for the realities of life outside the Factory gates, so to speak, a state of affairs not helped by the fact that he appeared to inherit not just Wilson's idealism, but his legendarily appalling business sense. In 1986, Saville could command £20,000 to design an album sleeve for Peter Gabriel, but three years later he was virtually bankrupt.

An attempt to join a more standard graphic design agency went as you might expect, given Saville's aversion to commerce and being told what to do and, indeed, deadlines. An attempt to start a multimedia practice in Los Angeles in 1993 was even less successful: he left after a couple of months. He found himself broke, reduced to visiting record labels in the hope that they would give him free albums he could sell at a secondhand store.

"I had $3 the day of the big earthquake in LA in 1994. Literally. That was new for me, from an affluent, spoilt, middle-class background. I needed $20 each day to drive the car – because there's driving to do in LA – and to eat. And it's very difficult when you need $20. People who were" – he makes air quotes – "friends would make you wait all day for $20. It was probably good for me. Find out what it means to have no money."

Eventually, he made it back to Britain, convinced he was "the last big thing", only to discover that, amid the climate of reverence for the past engendered by Britpop, he was once more in demand not just by bands including Suede and Pulp, but by the fashion industry.

He should have ascended with ease to the role of the grand old – or at least middle-aged – man of British graphic design. His early designs have worked their way into the fabric of British life – in 2010, the cover of Power, Corruption and Lies made its way on to a first-class stamp. But he seems surprisingly equivocal about their iconic status, concerned that they have become divorced from their original meaning, from "the authenticity" of Factory: "You see them used to sell Airmiles or text message minutes." He mentions "the total car crash catalogue of disasters" that was Disney's attempt to market a T-shirt with Joy Division's Unknown Pleasures cover turned into Mickey Mouse's head. He shows me a T-shirt featuring the same image, with the slogan: "WHAT IS THIS? I SAW IT ON TUMBLR." "It's brilliant, isn't it?" he says, smiling. "Profoundly clever."

For all Saville's contradictions and professed difficulties, I am not convinced that he isn't secretly happy in what he describes as "the interzone between things", blessed with a reputation that enables him to ignore briefs and cause trouble. He gives the impression that he rather enjoys it.

Just before I leave, he tells me about his 2010 commission to redesign the England football shirt: he came up with the idea of multicoloured crosses of St George. "The red and white thing has been entirely marginalised by one kind of person. It's synonymous with an attitude that is naive, xenophobic, bullying and self-marginalising. I thought, that's not reflective of the team, or football, or of the nation at all. But it turns out the market for those shirts are those bloody-minded xenophobic individuals with the shaved heads. When it came out, they did not like it. They did not like it at all."

He laughs in manner that doesn't sound rueful or abashed so much as delighted. "Oh yeah," he nods, still laughing, "they fucking hated it."

Peter Saville will be in conversation with Paul Morley at the Global Design Forum on 16 September, as part of the London Design Festival, 14–22 September. www.londondesignfestival.com

Summary: He talks to Alexis Petridis about the joy of Factory Records, hating the fashion industry and being sacked by the city of Manchester


FORTUNE — There’s a somewhat paranoid theory being circulated among Apple AAPL investors in the wake of the company’s seven-month, $296-billion loss in market value.

It goes something like this:

Revealed as a patent copycat last summer by a California jury’s $1.05 billion verdict — a PR disaster of the first order that shook top management and tarnished the image of an entire nation — Samsung quietly declared war on Apple.

Drawing on a massive $5.3 billion sales, promotion and marketing budget, the company poured a fortune into a high-profile ad campaign designed to caricature Apple’s customers as foolish sheep. Meanwhile at the retail level it paid mobile phone salespeople cash “spiffs” (bonuses) for every smartphone customer they could persuade to choose Samsung over Apple.

Behind the scenes, the company engaged in more surreptitious stratagems. It began paying students and other heavy users of social media to post anonymous messages talking up the virtues of Samsung’s products and spreading fear, uncertainty and doubt about Apple and other competitors.

Most deviously of all, it took a massive short position in Apple in the U.S. securities markets, putting selling pressure on the stock and tarnishing Apple’s once-glowing reputation on Wall Street.

OK, so that last bit is admittedly a stretch and purely speculative. Apple’s shares were due to fall of their weight as the company entered several quarters of tighter margins and slower growth.

But the rest of this nightmare fantasy is pretty well-documented fact.

The shocked reaction of Chairman Lee Kun-hee to the California verdict last summer was widely reported in South Korean media. Samsung’s marketing budget comes directly from the company’s quarterly reports. The anti-Apple ads were aired on prime-time American television. Some of Samsung’s spiff rates are posted online. And just this week Samsung’s Taiwanese subsidiary admitted that it paid students to post negative comments about rival HTC in its home market. Reports have since surfaced in the U.K. and Sweden that it was engaging in similar practices in those countries.

To be fair, Samsung is a world-class electronics manufacturer and a fierce competitor whose smartphones have steadily improved and increased market share on their own merit.

But the company certainly has pockets deep enough to do real damage to a company it might choose to target by other means. What’s not clear is how low it’s been willing to go.

Summary: Conspiracy theories grow after charges it funded agent provocateurs in three countries.


Among the greatest blessings of rising global prosperity is better nutrition for billions of people, but with a catch: the challenge of sustainably producing the extra food that increasing numbers can finally afford. It’s a giant opportunity for the world’s largest manufacturer of agricultural equipment, Deere DE . To grab it, CEO Sam Allen, 60, travels often to Brazil, China, India, Russia, and other populous, growing countries. A Purdue grad who joined Deere in 1975, he became chief executive in 2009. The stock has about doubled since then, beating the S&P SPX . Allen spoke recently with Geoff Colvin about why Deere prefers that tractor drivers keep their hands off the steering wheel, about grooming young talent, and much else. Edited excerpts:

Q: Global agricultural output will have to double in the next 40 years with no more land or water than we’ve got now. How’s that going to happen?

A: We think there’s about 17% more arable land available in places like sub-Saharan Africa, the Cerrado areas of Brazil, the CIS [former Soviet republics]. But still it’s just a small part. Already 67% of the world’s fresh water is consumed by agriculture. We can’t just say, “Don’t irrigate.” We believe the key will be continuing to improve productivity, mostly on existing land. That’s going to come through a combination of seed genetics and smarter agronomic decisions, and those decisions are going to be enabled through the use of data coming off equipment that’s getting more intelligent all the time.

How precise is agriculture getting?

On our equipment — large combines, large tractors, large sprayers — we have proprietary GPS that enables what we call auto-steer. We don’t even want the operator to touch the steering wheel. Going up and down a field a mile each way, if the farmer has a 60-foot boom on the back, 30 feet on each side, there’ll be only a two-inch overlap. Prior to this, a farmer would have overlapped by at least six feet.

Technologically, where are Deere’s greatest opportunities now?

The greatest opportunities will always be around our big, highly productive equipment, whether it’s construction equipment or forestry equipment or large ag. In the case of large ag, it will be about enabling tractors and combines and sprayers to work smarter, faster.

What is really interesting now is what we call smart implements. In baling straw, for example, there’s an optimum moisture content, and as the straw’s moisture content changes, you want the bale to be denser or less dense, which means you want the tractor to go faster or not as fast. We’ve just introduced a baler that has sensors on it that are sensing the moisture. The operator in the tractor does not touch anything, and the baler sends a signal to the tractor to go faster or slower.

Deere is becoming more of an infotech business. Does that change the way you manage it?

Most people don’t realize that one of our 8000 Series tractors has more computing power on it than the first space shuttle. We have reorganized so we can have a group that does what we’ve traditionally done well, which is the hardware and the embedded software that goes with it, and another group, where I’ve brought in people from places like Microsoft MSFT to help us with the application side of this.

How would you advise a young person today who wanted to rise to the top of a big global company like yours?

Focus on understanding what you don’t know, because if you don’t, some people in your organization will probably let you go ahead and go down that path, and you’re going to be in trouble. You’ve got to build relationships with people — that’s critical — but then you’ve got to say, “Okay, I do understand this, but I really don’t understand that, and I’ve got to let people know that and have people help me.”

Water is fast becoming one of the most valuable commodities on earth. Can the technology help conserve water?

Yes. A number of people are going more and more to no-till [farming]. And with no-till, you conserve water since you’re not busting up the ground.

We do have an operation in precision-drip irrigation. It’s much, much more efficient than what’s done in a majority of the world today, which is just flood irrigation. You’ve got a great window into other important parts of the global economy.

You have this big construction-equipment business, for starters, that gives you an opinion on housing starts in the U.S.

It’s starting to improve a little. A normal year in new-housing starts is 1.6 million, 1.4 to 1.6 million. We were in excess of 2 million right before the Great Recession. We went down under 600,000. We’re back up in the 840,000 to 880,000 range. And we’re thinking that it’s not going to come back quite as quickly as some people might think. With a 2% GDP growth, you’re just not going to see things turn around overnight.

Agriculture worldwide is a high-growth business for as far as the eye can see. It will attract a lot of competitors. Ultimately what is the source of Deere’s competitive advantage?

I’d like to say part of it is our 176-year history, and some people would also say that can be an Achilles’ heel. But I do think our values keep us well grounded. Clearly one of our competitive advantages is our great dealer network. And we’re really good at developing strong dealers. It’s a source of sustainable competitive advantage.

And then we do a really good job focusing on productivity, up time, and low total cost of ownership. That’s our value proposition to the customer. And we try not to deviate from that. We invest a lot of money in R&D. We’re about $1.5 billion a year right now. We invest a lot of money in new product programs, a lot of them now tied to emissions.

But those are what I call bookends. In the middle it’s about having a very highly aligned, highly engaged, committed workforce — that’s the 176-year part. That’s the culture that’s Deere, founded in integrity, commitment to quality. It brings that type of person into our organization. Highly aligned, highly engaged people are our major advantage.

One of your stated priorities is growing talent in the company. How do you persuade the best young people to come to work for Deere?

We’ve tried to really articulate our higher purpose — we’re committed to those linked to the land, enabling human flourishing by letting farmers do a better job feeding the world, letting contractors do a better job sheltering the world. Probably right now, more than at any time in my career, that message really resonates with today’s kids who are coming out of school. So No. 1, you’ve got to have the type of company that somebody wants to come to.

Then when we have a new group come in and I speak to them, I say, “One of the first things I want you to do is really get to know us quickly. And if you don’t think you like us, leave, because it won’t be the type of company you want to work for. And we want people that really want to work for us. And the good news is if we keep you the first year, we have no turnover after that.”

I think the other thing that has really helped us now is being global. It’s an opportunity to get talent from all around the world. And when you start going to the Indias and the Chinas of the world and talk about working for a multinational and talk about working in agriculture, you’ve got a great chance to attract talent.

You went to college on what’s called an Evans scholarship, which goes to caddies. And I know that you have been a great supporter of this whole concept. How was it important to you?

Evans scholars have to have economic need, so you come from middle income or lower, and then you have to have good academics. And then you have to caddy for at least two to three years at a minimum, a certain number of loops. And I had grown up around golf all my life, so that part was the easy part.

A second thing is you end up, you’re in a house together, and there are about 46, 48 of us at the time I was there. And you don’t get to choose the house you’re in, and you don’t get to choose who you’re with. And so there were people from inner Chicago and a number of different backgrounds. Probably one of the great things for me in that was in building an appreciation for inclusion.

The Leadership series: This is the latest interview with a top executive by Fortune senior editor-at-large Geoff Colvin. See video excerpts of this interview at fortune.com/leadership — plus find Colvin interviews with Charles Schwab, the team of Jeff Immelt (GE) and A.G. Lafley (P&G), Pimco’s Mohamed El-Erian, Novartis CEO Joe Jimenez, Whole Foods co-CEO W alter Robb, and many more.

This story is from the September 16, 2013 issue of Fortune.

Summary: John Deere CEO Sam Allen on boosting agricultural yields with information technology.


Bethenny Frankel in Bryn's pajamas in July

10/03/2014 AT 12:50 PM EDT

angered lots of people this summer when she

for a notorious Instagram photo.

On Thursday, a Manhattan judge let Frankel know she wasn't amused by the pic, either.

"No more pajamas!" Manhattan Supreme Court justice Ellen Gesmer told Frankel's lawyer during the reality star's divorce proceedings, reports the

The lawyer, Allan Mayefsky, didn't disagree with the judge, but did say: "It was done as a joke."

"It's not a joke. Her child is not a joke," the judge replied sternly, saying Frankel's photo will have repercussions for Bryn for years to come.

Frankel was not in the courtroom at the time. She was waiting in a hallway as her and ex Jason Hoppy's lawyers were talking to the judge about placing a value on their assets. She declined to comment later as reporters asked about the judge's opinion.

Frankel, 43, and Hoppy are working through the rest of their divorce proceedings, having

over Bryn back in June.

When reached by PEOPLE, a rep for Frankel had no comment on the proceedings.

Summary: The reality star is chastised for a notorious Instagram post during her divorce proceedings


More than 250 turbans, bonnets, and other imaginative hats designed by British “milliner-to-the-stars” Stephen Jones, organized by the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. Through Feb. 3. Peabody Essex Museum,

JOSIAH MCELHENY: SOME PICTURES OF THE INFINITE

Cosmic questions addressed by this talented and internationally acclaimed Boston-born artist. Through Oct. 14. Institute of Contemporary Art. 617-478-3100,

THE OWEN AND WAGNER COLLECTION OF CONTEMPORARY ABORIGINAL

AUSTRALIAN ART AT THE HOOD MUSEUM OF ART

More than 100 works of Australian indigenous art from the Hood’s collection, including acrylic paintings, bark paintings, and sculptures. Through March 10. Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, N.H. 603-646-2808, hoodmuseum.dartmouth.edu

Summary: Critic Sebastian Smee recommends exhibits in area art museums, including “Hats:aAn Anthology by Stephen Jones,” at the Peabody Essex Museum, in Salem. On display are more than 250 turbans, bonnets, and other imaginative hats designed by British “milliner-to-the-stars” Stephen Jones, organized by the Victoria and Albert Museum, in London.


Editor’s note: Every Sunday, Fortune publishes a favorite story from our magazine archives. This week, we look back at the wild and wooly tale of billionaire J.R. Simplot and the Idaho chip manufacturer he backed, Micron Technology. Micron’s CEO Steve Appleton died when a small plane he was piloting crashed earlier this month in Boise. Fortune Managing Editor Andy Serwer wrote the piece in late 1995 and he remembers that Appleton, then 35, seemed to have a need for speed. A picture in the article shows Appleton without a helmet making a jump on a dirt bike. Appleton’s tragic death is a sad chapter in Micron’s incredibly cinematic story.

Micron Technology is one of the Big Board’s most active stocks. Behind it is the most active octogenarian spud farmer in Idaho.

FORTUNE — The cream-colored Lincoln eases down a dirt road along an Idaho feedlot. Cowboys spot the car’s MR. SPUD license plates and yank the reins of their horses to stare. At the wheel is their boss, John Richard (J.R.) Simplot, the remarkably vital 86-year-old billionaire. The old man stares right back at the cowpokes and nods with approval. Why shouldn’t he like what he sees? He owns everything in sight: the Bunyanesque feedlot, the huge complex of potato-processing plants, and, beyond, miles and miles of farmland. “It’s a big moose,” he says. “Awesome.”

As with any megafortune, Simplot’s wealth was built from a few simple but revolutionary ideas, much sweat, and a generous glossing of luck. The details of his experience, however, are singular in the extreme. To begin with, Simplot is really the last man to have hewed a great fortune from the preindustrial West: Starting in the 1920s in southern Idaho’s Snake River basin, he built a potato-based agricultural empire that, among other things, supplies McDonald’s with more than 50% of its French fries. Now, amazingly, he is emerging as one of the single biggest winners in semiconductor technology. Through mind-boggling gains in the stock of Micron Technology, his high-tech fortune has suddenly ballooned to the point where it is clearly exceeded only by Bill Gates’ and Paul Allen’s. Besides being a wild ride full of bigger-than-the-sky personalities, intrigue, and potfuls of instant money, his life begins to look like a metaphor for the history of American business in this century-a man makes a fortune practically in the era of Manifest Destiny and then makes another in the age of the Internet. It seems impossible.

But it’s true. Simplot’s stake in Micron, the Boise chipmaker, has grown more than $2.5 billion, to $3.4 billion, in 24 months. That’s $5 million every working day. You may have noticed Micron on your newspaper’s business pages. Its stock nearly always on the NYSE most active list-in fact, only Teletonos de Mexico, Ford, and Compaq have had more shares change hands this year than Micron. Depending on the vagaries of the equity markets–and lately Micron and other tech stocks have fallen somewhat–the value of the 21% of Micron that Simplot owns or controls is on par with the stockholdings of Intel’s Gordon Moore, Oracle’s Larry Ellison, or H-P’s David Packard and William Hewlett.

Unlike those men, though, Simplot never finished the eighth grade, and he accumulated half his fortune after the age of 84. (Actually, his Micron stock would be worth over $4 billion except that the company’s shares are down 25% since September. But, hey, they’re up more than sevenfold since November 1993.)

Like most overnight success stories, Micron’s took years of toil, blind faith, and, for a long while, good money after bad. Simplot was there almost from the beginning. He didn’t just sneak in two years ago for the joy ride, nor was he some passive Dutch uncle. He bankrolled Micron, propped up the company when it was on the brink, and helped push it over the top. Today, Micron is a major provider of chips to Compaq and other PC makers. It’s also incredibly profitable.

There is bickering in Boise over who really deserves credit for the success of the memory chip manufacturer. Simplot, of course, wasn’t the technical brains, nor was he the day-to-day CEO. But he was the sugar daddy. “Fella,” Simplot says, “Micron is my baby.”

Simple words, but perhaps irksome to one of the company’s founders and a former CEO, Joe Parkinson, who clashed with Simplot over financial and fiduciary matters at Micron. These differences came to a head last year, FORTUNE has learned, after the CEO and Simplot locked horns over whether Simplot was divulging what Parkinson considered inside information. Parkinson asked Simplot to cease. He also made a motion that Simplot be removed from the board. When Simplot said Parkinson’s charges were groundless and didn’t step down, Parkinson resigned. Micron apparently felt no ill effects. The board installed as CEO a then 34-yearold named Steven Appleton, who had started out working in the company’s clean rooms at $4.46 an hour.

Micron’s boom has benefited Boise tremendously. In fact, you could say this town of 347,773 is in the midst of a Chip Rush. Boise is now the fifth-fastest-growing city in the U.S., thanks largely to Micron and no thanks to other local businesses, like Morrison Knudsen, which has imploded, and a Hewlett-Packard disk-drive and printer plant that has cut its work force. Micron has created 8,000 jobs and dozens of millionaires, and upon a lucky few has bestowed truly huge fortunes. The latter group includes members of Micron’s board, ranchers, farmers, and developers- friends of Simplot’s. They are powerful landowners–the state’s elite who each now happen to own $50 million to $100 million of Micron stock. Some mornings you can find them at Burns Bros. truck stop off Interstate 84 having breakfast at 6 A.M. Last one in gets stuck with the tab.

And Simplot is their aged king. Up in the private card room of the Arid Club–where none of the new women members dare tread—J.R., or Jack, as they sometimes call him, holds court. Every afternoon he drives his Lincoln five blocks over from his office in downtown Boise, parks in the handicapped spot out front (“No cripples here anyway”), and unlocks a special door that leads directly upstairs. “Hey, boys,” he says, walking in, a little stiffly now after his second hip replacement surgery last April. “How about a game?” And the boys oblige, gin rummy or bridge, for a couple of hours.

At an age when most of us would be thrilled to push a shuffleboard stick, Simplot is the éminence grise behind his private Simplot Co.–which has potato, ranching, chemical, and mineral interests–as well as Micron. Both do close to $3 billion in annual sales. Yes, his hearing and memory are diminished–he’s not great on the phone. Yes, his driving is a little shaky–he parks wherever he chooses, which drives truckers at his plants crazy. And, yes, he looks better in a hat. But his range of mental and physical activity is amazing. He neither smokes nor drinks and is an unflappable optimist.

Simplot just returned from a two-week trip to Australia to inspect 11 food plants he recently bought for $300 million. He plays golf–21 handicap–and skis. He recently addressed the Federal Reserve Bank. Accompany J.R. through one of his potato-processing plants and you soon find yourself trailing him across slop-slippery floors, up and over metal scaffolding blasted by starchy steam, and underneath clickety-clack packaging lines. “J.R.,” says everyone who knows him, “is incredible.”

Officially, Simplot retired in April 1994, but each morning he drives the Spudmobile down from his home in the foothills—you can’t miss the 50-by-30-foot American flag on the 100-foot pole out front. He takes an elevator up to the 13th floor of the Capital Centre building on Main Street. There, in an office filled with pictures of family and the requisite Remington-style bronzes, he meets with the men who run Simplot. He’ll query them about cattle and potato prices, but clearly his new love is technology and Micron. “Fella, we got something special in Micron. We’re leading the world. It’s real. It’s not just a bunch of bullshit. We’re rolling out the chips,” he says, eyes widening.

Simplot has a growly, rolling, almost theatrical delivery–George C. Scott would do well as a movie version–that tends to rise in a crescendo at the end of sentences. It could be a radio voice, which isn’t surprising, since one of his best friends was the late broadcaster Lowell Thomas, whom he met years ago at Averell Harriman’s cottage at Sun Valley. Simplot stretches his solid 5-foot 10-inch frame and pulls out a little wallet-size display of Micron’s chips. “On this little chip we can get 16 million bits of information. That’s 1,000 to 2,000 pages of information, and we can get it off the chip in a millionth of a second.”

Okay, but what’s the connection? How is it that an 86-year-old farmer got mixed up in megabits? First, calling Simplot a farmer is like calling Bill Gates a college dropout. And second, a look at Simplot’s career shows that he has always harnessed the power of machines and technology to make quantum leaps in business. Simplot was born in Dubuque, Iowa, in 1909 and moved to Idaho when he was an infant. His family settled on the south bank of the Snake River and cleared the land to farm. At 14, he left home, dropped out of school, and built his first machine. It was a giant boiler for cooking up scrap potatoes and horse meat–from wild horses he shot out on the desert–to feed his hogs. The boiler helped him prepare mass quantities of food through a tough winter, and in the spring he sold his pigs for a profit of some $7,000, a small fortune at the time.

The next machine that grabbed Simplot’s attention was an automatic potato sorter. Then still in his teens, Simplot and a partner ordered one of these machines. Simplot owned a 50% share and won the other half in a coin toss. That machine gave him a monopoly on the fast sorting of potatoes in Idaho, and Simplot was on his way to his first million. Another technological breakthrough: food dehydration. On a trip to California in 1940, Simplot saw an old prune drier adapted to drying onions. He ordered one and used it to create dehydrated potatoes, which fed the troops in World War II. That device helped make him an even wealthier man.

His next breakthrough was successfully freezing potatoes, which had never been done until one of Simplot’s engineers discovered that the trick was blanching and compressing. That technology led to a deal with Ray Kroc in the mid-1960s for Simplot to sell frozen French fries to McDonald’s , which made him a billionaire.

Micron was founded by a group of engineers, including one Ward Parkinson, who were joined by Parkinson’s twin brother, Joe, a lawyer. Raised in southeastern Idaho, the Parkinsons–who married and were divorced from sisters–worked potato fields and delivered spuds to Simplot warehouses as kids. They excelled in school and attended Columbia University in New York. After a decade of wandering and various jobs, the twins ended up in Boise, Ward doing contract engineering for Texas chipmaker Mostek and Joe doing dreary, small-city legal work. Ward and his engineering buddies had decided to form Micron in 1978. They set out to create a new, smaller version of the 64K DRAM chip, which is a memory chip that holds some 64,000 bits of information. (Joe ended up helping out so much he joined Micron and became head man.) One major problem: money. They needed sacks of it. The Parkinsons were introduced to Allen Noble, a farmer and inventor of irrigation systems, and to a couple of other potential investors, Tom Nicholson and Ron Yanke. The three men anted up $100,000 each-the Parkinsons pitched in too. Later they went to Simplot and his big bucks.

And just who are these founders and insiders? All Idahoans of the old school. Take Nicholson and Yanke, who both became board members (though Yanke later left) and played significant roles in nurturing the company. Frontier-friendly and best friends since Boise High School–Nicholson was student body president, while next to Yanke’s yearbook picture it reads, “Lanky but never lonesome”–they each own about a million shares of Micron stock today.

One recent morning at Burns Bros. truck stop, Yanke and Nicholson arrive around 6 A.M. to eat and chat with the boys, including Bill Deasey, who preceded Bill Agee as CEO of Morrison Knudsen, and Harry Bettis, who owns some $85 million of stock in West One, Idaho’s biggest bank. These are conservative Republicans, though politically distant from the off-the-grid types who inhabit the state’s deep woods. Simplot, who says he’s been offered and has refused two U.S. Senate seats, says he stays out of active politics since he has to get along with politicians from both parties.

After breakfast–a few order buffalo burgers and eggs, with hot sauce—Nicholson and Yanke hop into Yanke’s truck and head over to the airport. Hearing that Micron stock is down two points, Yanke flips on his Motorola cell phone and calls his broker. “Get me 10,000 shares of Micron.” Done deal. A $750,000 stock trade out of a 1.5-ton Dodge Ram. Then it’s up in Yanke’s Cessna Turbo 206 for a little elk spotting. (Is this their own private Idaho, or what?) “There’s two, Ron,” calls Nicholson. “No, Tom, those are cattle,” replies Yanke. “Turn the plane around, Rory, and let’s see.” In a blink the pilot twists the Cessna sideways, 100 feet off the tall timber just west of the Sawtooth Range at 125 miles per hour. “Barf bags are behind the seat,” says Nicholson.

The pair fly up to the town of McCall, on Payette Lake, where many of Idaho’s power brokers–including Simplot and Yanke–have homes. Nicholson recalls a flight he made in the very same airplane with Micron co-founder Ward Parkinson back in the early 1980s when the company was struggling. Simplot’s people wouldn’t let him put in another penny, and Nicholson and Parkinson flew up to meet with Bill Agee, then CEO of the auto-parts company Bendix. (Agee was accompanied by his then-assistant Mary Cunningham.) “We offered him 50% of Micron for about $1 million,” says Nicholson, who has known Agee for years. “And he said, ‘It won’t work: No.’ ” Much has been made of Bill Agee’s boneheaded moves. That 50% stake is now worth some $7.5 billion.

But for Micron in the 1980s, Agee’s rejection was just another chapter in a Russian novel of nyets. “We flew down to Dallas to talk with L.J. Sevin, head of Mostek,” recalls board member Allen Noble. “And he said, ‘You’ll never make chips up there, never.’ ” In an exercise of sheer hubris, the Parkinsons pushed ahead to build a fabrication plant (called a fab) while they were still designing their chip. Bankrolled to a large extent by Simplot, they completed the fab in 1981 for between $7 million and $10 million, a tenth the cost of a typical facility. The company turned out its first 64K DRAM in 1982.

Micron went public in 1984. Terrible timing. Eleven U.S. firms would soon stop making DRAMs domestically–all except IBM, which mostly used the chips internally, and Micron–because the Japanese had broken into the market and crashed prices. “They dropped the price of DRAMs from $2 to 25 cents and kept it there for 18 months,” roars Simplot. “They were dumping!” At various points the company was in deep trouble. But eventually the Reagan Administration slapped a $300 million tariff on Japanese chips. Next, Micron was hit by a slowdown in the chip business. By 1990 the company had $333 million in sales, but profits of only $5 million.

“We learned from those years,” says Steve Appleton, the motorcycle-riding CEO. “We learned that to survive, we had to become the lowest-cost producer.” Rather than focus on cutting-edge technology and then look for an application, engineers at Micron became experts at the process of making chips, especially a technique called shrinks. The smaller a company can make a chip, the more profit it can make, since tinier chips allow a company to produce more chips per batch. Chief technologist Tyler Lowrey, whom several board members call the company’s franchise player, explains that Micron has been known more for its expertise in manufacturing chips than for actual chip design: “Our hallmark has been process technology. We’ve been high volume. We don’t look for little niches.”

So while the rest of the industry is now focused on making chips with 16 megs of memory (which can hold some 16 million bits of information), Micron still mostly churns out four megs. While most other companies have converted from six-inch to eight-inch wafers, Micron is just now switching over. Not that the company doesn’t keep up with the latest technology. But it makes changes conservatively, carefully weighing the costs.

High volume, low cost is a familiar concept to Simplot, who’s used to doing battle in tight margin commodity markets. But if Simplot didn’t like the company’s strategy, he’d probably change it. He may not be in control of scheduling shifts, but he does call the big shots. As one card player at the Arid Club bluntly puts it, “The board runs the company.” Initially, Appleton takes issue with that notion. “Our board, like any other board, decides what the company tells the public. It decides what executives are paid. And it determines what we do with the stock.” But when pressed, he admits that Micron’s board is “slightly different.” Major understatement.

During Micron’s crisis years, the board began meeting every Monday morning at Elmer’s Pancake House. It’s a habit that stuck like syrup to a napkin. Even though the company now has billions in revenue, the board still gathers at Elmer’s–where two ceramic pigs stand guard on top of a rotating cake display–once a week at 5:45 A.M. Get there after six and Simplot will cock his head and ask, “What’s the matter, did you sleep in?” For breakfast Simplot passes on the short stack (which isn’t bad) and orders a bowl of raisin bran. He’s known to steal a few strips of bacon from the plates of other board members. Does this breakfast club really conduct serious business? “We go over everything,” says Appleton.

Perhaps that’s the kind of stifling oversight that precipitated the falling out between Joe Parkinson and Simplot. That, and the coincidence that both of them are as hardheaded as mountain goats. It’s been over a year since Parkinson–who’s now CEO of Integrated Information Technologies, a videochip company in Santa Clara, California–and Micron parted ways, and so far both sides have maintained a remarkable silence. But FORTUNE has pieced together what occurred. “You have to understand they were two extremes,” says Appleton. “Joe Parkinson always liked to prepare for the worst, while J.R. Simplot is an eternal optimist.”

That congenital divergence was reflected in nearly every decision the two men tried to make. Simplot says that Parkinson’s communications to shareholders were unnecessarily pessimistic and that Parkinson would sell his Micron stock instead of hanging on to it. “I offered him a $50,000 loan several times to buy stock and he refused it,” Simplot says. (Not that Parkinson needed to borrow $50,000 from Simplot.) Another divisive issue, Simplot says, was whether to expand the company, and if so, how to finance it. Says one Boise insider: “Joe was very suspicious of the markets. He wanted to hoard the company’s profits and issue stock to pay for any new fabs. ” Obviously a strategy that diluted the stock was not going to find favor with Simplot.

But there’s another side to the story. Sources on the board say Parkinson believed Simplot was talking up the company to his buddies down at the Arid Club and perhaps to Wall Street. In the process, they say, Parkinson said Simplot revealed insider information. Parkinson, wary of shareholder lawsuits–the company was sued in 1989–or an SEC investigation, had Simplot sign a highly unusual document in February 1993. This “indemnification ” document–a copy of which FORTUNE has obtained–states that “Simplot will not disclose to anyone not employed by Micron any proprietary information about [Micron] … ” And, “In the event Simplot breaches the foregoing, Simplot will defend … hold harmless, and indemnify Micron …”

In October 1993, Simplot sent a letter to the Wall Street Journal talking up Micron’s stock. Not knowing whether the Journal would print the letter–it ultimately didn’t—the company felt compelled to issue a press release stating that “the letter is a personal statement of Mr. Simplot,” that some of his comments were “factually incorrect,” and that “Micron disavows any forecast of earnings.” Meanwhile, Parkinson confronted Simplot about his loose talk, but Simplot–who has run a private company his whole life–said he wasn’t sure he had revealed any numbers and that anyway he was not speaking for Micron and would damn well do as he pleased.

This wasn’t the first time Simplot’s business conduct had been questioned. In one of the largest scandals ever to hit the commodity markets, he was charged with manipulating the potato futures market in 1976. Basically, Simplot sold short potato futures, some say trying to depress prices. Instead of buying back contracts to cover his position, he let them expire. When those who held the long contracts demanded payment, Simplot sent them potatoes–though not Maine potatoes as the contracts stipulated–instead of cash, setting off an eight-year legal battle. Bottom line: Simplot was barred from trading for six years, paid a $50,000 fine, and settled a civil suit for $1.4 million. In 1977, Simplot was charged with tax fraud for failing to report more than $1 million in corporate income and claiming over $250,000 of false personal and family deductions. He pleaded nolo contendere and paid two $20,000 fines.

The conflict at Micron came to a head in September 1994, a week before the company was set to release yearly results. Over the weekend of September 17, Parkinson got a call informing him that Simplot again was spreading what Parkinson considered insider information–in this case Micron’s year-end earnings to the penny. On Monday, September 19, Simplot skipped the meeting at Elmer’s and drove out to the airport with his wife, Esther, to fly one of his Hawker jets to Canada for business. At Elmer’s, Parkinson told the board he wanted a special meeting that morning in the privacy of Micron’s boardroom to discuss the Simplot situation. Simplot was called and told of the meeting as he was about to board his plane.

Simplot quickly drove the three miles over to Micron. When he arrived, the mood was somber. Board members say Parkinson asked Simplot if he was divulging insider information. Simplot said he didn’t believe he was. Parkinson said he could no longer serve with Simplot on the board. Parkinson then made a motion that Simplot not stand for reelection to the company’s board. But no one seconded the motion, and it failed. Simplot recalls reminding Parkinson of his controlling interest in over 20% of the stock. “Has it really come down to this,” Simplot asked, “that it’s either you or me?” It had. “I’m not leaving,” said Simplot. So Parkinson and two allies, chief operating officer James Garrett and CFO Reid Langrill, resigned. It wasn’t the first time Parkinson had walked. Years earlier, Simplot lost his temper. “You’re fired,” he said to Parkinson. “You can’t do that,” responded Parkinson. “Then get out of my building,” J.R. growled. And Parkinson did. But this time Simplot was shaken and held his tongue.

Parkinson insists it was only Simplot’s leaking confidential information and denying he did so to the board that caused him to leave the company.

Insiders acknowledge Parkinson’s contribution, but many say privately that he could be difficult to work with. His twin, Ward, left the company in 1989 after some serious head butting. Most won’t comment on the record other than to compliment Parkinson’s successor, Steve Appleton. For instance: “Steve is someone who really listens,” says Gene Cloud, Micron’s head of marketing.

Others say Simplot is the bad guy. He’s a manipulator, they claim, who hypes Micron’s stock. One board member says he sometimes cringes when Simplot starts talking during shareholder meetings. Simplot recently told FORTUNE: “They might not want me saying this, but it’s my opinion. I think Micron is going to earn $12 a share next year.”

Certainly, Simplot has his demons. His older sister Peggy lives back in south-central Idaho, but he doesn’t see or talk about her much. And his son Richard, who had battled alcoholism, died of diabetes in 1993. Except for his daughter Gay, his other children, who are all on the Simplot board, don’t seem to have anywhere near the same business acumen he does. His second wife, Esther, a classically trained singer in her early 60s, has preoccupations of her own. In 1991 she hired a mysterious Russian emigre to run the Ballet Idaho troupe–he left the company suddenly in 1993. In mid-September the nude and strangled body of the emigre’s wife was found in some brush down the hill from the Simplot house.

But Simplot waves off all this unpleasantness. Personal tragedies, the feds, willful CEOs, lawsuits–Simplot seems to just brush them aside. With Parkinson gone, he has moved to push Micron harder.

The company is expanding full bore, funded by internally generated cash, of course. Last fall Micron announced plans to build a new $2.5 billion fab complex in a to-be-determined location. That set off the usual speculation and courting by states and municipalities.

By all accounts the company would have been content to stay in Boise–there’s nothing but acres of sagebrush surrounding its facility–but for a nasty intrastate squabble. Micron, which already employs 1,000 engineers, wanted to build its new plant near an engineering school to help supply it with a pool of trained labor. Boise State, mostly a commuter school, has no engineering program, but the University of Idaho, 220 miles to the north in the otherwise low-tech hamlet of Moscow, does. Would the state be willing to move the engineering school, or let Micron help underwrite one at Boise State? Negative on both counts. Even with Micron, the Hewlett-Packard plant, and Zilog, another thriving chipmaker, in Boise, the state refused to move the school and made it impossible for Boise State to run an accredited program. Simplot was livid.

Not surprisingly, Micron announced the plant would not be built in Idaho but in Oklahoma, Nebraska, or Utah. Still, Simplot wanted to give it one more shot. On the morning of February 20 of this year, he demanded that a special joint meeting of the legislature be convened (that day!) so that he could address the lawmakers on the engineering school brouhaha! The lawmakers agreed to listen to him that afternoon in the statehouse’s largest hearing room. Despite a half-hour appeal by Simplot, the upstate forces wouldn’t change their minds. So on July 1, Micron broke ground in Lehi, Utah, at a site 20 miles equidistant from the University of Utah’s and Brigham Young’s solid engineering schools. What happened to Nebraska? Says Simplot: “Well, Warren Buffett called me up and talked to me for about 20 minutes trying to convince me to move the plant down there. He’s a nice fella, but we just decided on Utah.”

Micron hasn’t exactly given up on Boise. The company is spending $900 million to expand its 1.8-million-square-foot headquarters. Every room, clean or otherwise, is buzzing with the business of making chips and is simultaneously expanding. Chipmaking equipment is so expensive and becomes outdated so quickly that shifts must work 24 hours to amortize. In one 2,000-square-foot space, dozens of $2.5 million chip testers are being installed. Half a mile down the road from Micron, a brand-new housing development–put up by guess who–is open for business. In a quirky television commercial, Simplot looks into the camera and barks, “You young people … get a piece of the action!”

The 64-megabit question: Is Micron moving ahead too fast? The Idaho Statesman recently reported Micron is set to build another new plant in Ireland. Certainly, demand for DRAMs can’t grow much faster. Worldwide semiconductor sales are expected to grow an amazing 40% this year, according to the Semiconductor Industry Association. The market for chips has become humongous. Micron, which has only a 5.5% share, could do $5.5 billion in sales in fiscal 1996 (which ends in August). The diversified Asian giants–Samsung, Hitachi, NEC, and Toshiba–control over 40% of the market, though much of their production is for internal use.

Right now Micron’s profits are fat indeed. Net margins are over 28%. Prices for chips, which usually decline 30% annually, have risen or held flat for three years. Driving demand for Micron’s chips is the boom in PCs, which need increasing amounts of memory. Simplot, who doesn’t even own a computer (“Hell, boy, I came before the goddamn typewriter”), was recently given a demonstration of Windows 95. His assessment: “I love that program. It uses all kinds of memory.” But will demand for PCs hold? Over 50 fabs are under construction around the world right now–including one by Taiwan’s Chia Hsin Livestock–which will eventually depress prices.

A few security analysts have expressed concern over possible declines in chip prices, though they haven’t cited any weakness in Micron’s business. Fidelity Investments, which owned 26 million shares (12.7%) of Micron’s stock in January, has cut back to 18 million shares (8.9%) as of October 1. And so the stock has dropped 25% in six weeks. At its high on September 11, Micron had a market capitalization of over $20 billion. That’s bigger than Texaco’s. Even today, at nearly $15 billion, Micron’s market value is greater than that of Sara Lee or Merrill Lynch. Simplot isn’t at all concerned about the stock price: “Hell, I’d buy more today, but my broker at Merrill Lynch won’t let me. Says I have to diversify.”

Micron bulls point to the company’s tremendous profitability and its nearly debt-free balance sheet. They argue that Windows 95 upgrades, plus strong demand from consumers, plus overseas growth, will keep chip sales and margins strong for the foreseeable future. Yes, they say, new fabs are coming online, but long backlogs of chipmaking equipment are slowing capacity expansion. For now, executives at Micron are upbeat. “Christmas is going to be a blowout,” says Gene Cloud, echoing others. Says one board member, sipping coffee up at the truck stop: “If we don’t earn $2 billion next fiscal year, something is wrong with us.” Simplot is looking for $2.5 billion.

To free themselves of the memory-chip product cycle, Appleton and company are looking to diversify. “We aren’t just focusing on DRAMs anymore. We’re making products to fill fabs,” says technologist Tyler Lowrey. Those products include little marker chips that can be slapped on airport luggage or pieces of mail, and flash memory chips, which need no energy source to retain information. Micron is also becoming a major force in PCs. Last year the company merged Zeos, a mail-order PC maker, into its own computer business. The new company, Micron Electronics (MUEI), with $1 billion in annual sales, trades on Nasdaq and is 79% owned by Micron. MUEI sells mostly high-end machines–133 megahertz and up–which have been winning rave reviews.

All of which makes Simplot a happy man. He neither designs chips nor builds fabs, but he’s become a major player in this business of computer chips. As with those boilers, sorters, driers, and freezers from decades before, Simplot has latched on to another moneymaking machine. This one, though–a half-fingernail sliver of silicon–could bring him more wealth than all the others combined.

Driving his Lincoln the 40 miles back from his dusty feedlots and steamy potato plants to the clean rooms of Micron, he turns and says, “Son, these computers are big, but they’re going to get bigger. Bigger than the goddamned wheel!” Even J.R. shakes his head at that one.

Summary: Editor's note: Every Sunday, Fortune publishes a favorite story from our magazine archives. This week, we look back at the wild and wooly tale of billionaire J.R. Simplot and the Idaho chip manufacturer he backed, Micron Technology. Micron's CEO Steve Appleton died when a small plane he was piloting crashed earlier this month in Boise.…


Hello friends and Fortune readers.

Happy holidays! The end of the year is here, and that means the business world will slow down from its normal hyper-speed pace. Here’s what you need to know for your week ahead.

The week kicks off with the latest monthly report about the sales of previously-owned home. Data from the report is expected to show that the market remained near its 13-month high, reached in October. Low borrowing costs and a higher rate of household formations helped boost the sustained recovery in home sales. Economists expect existing home sales to reach 5.2 million in November, just shy of October’s 5.26 million.

U.S. new home sales follow on Tuesday morning and are expected to also be little changed from the previous month. Economists expect new home sales to rise 0.4% month-over-month to 460,000 new home sales.

Personal spending figures will also be released on Tuesday. Economists are predicting that personal spending rose at a faster rate last month than in October due to an improving job market and lower gas prices during the start of the holiday-shopping season. Economists expect personal spending to rise 0.5% month-over-month.

2. Walgreen reports its fiscal first quarter earnings.

The Deerfield, Ill.-based drug store chain will report its quarterly results Tuesday. Analysts anticipate earnings-per-share, adjusted for one-time items, to be 75 cents, an increase compared to the year earlier period. Sales are also expected to be higher at $19.6 billion, according to Bloomberg data.

If competitor Rite Aid RAD is any indication, Walgreen’s WAG shares could be in for a big boost if earnings hit or exceed expectations. Rite Aid’s stock surged over 16% in pre-market trading Thursday after an earnings report that blew past whisper estimates.

3. Family Dollar shareholders vote on Dollar Tree acquisition.

Family Dollar FDO is holding a special meeting of shareholders Tuesday to vote on its acquisition of Dollar Tree DLTR . The Charlotte, N.C.-based dollar store inked a deal to buy its rival for $8.5 billion in cash and stock after a bitter battle with third competitor Dollar General DG .

The Federal Trade Commission has been reviewing the merger to determine whether the companies need to sell off some of their stores before the deal can be completed. The meeting was rescheduled from Dec. 11 after Family Dollar provided additional disclosures to shareholders about the FTC review.

Most of the world markets will be closed for at least part of the Christmas holidays. The New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq close at 1 p.m. ET on Wednesday and will remain closed through Thursday, Christmas Day.

Many European markets, including London, Frankfurt, Milan and Paris, will also be closed the Friday following.

5. The final days of Christmas shopping.

There’s just three full days left to buy any last-minute holiday gifts–and retailers are continuing their battle to get shoppers in the door. While analysts expect this year to be a decent holiday season for sellers of clothing, toys, electronics and other goods, they say ongoing discounts are cutting into their bottom line. Bad news for stores, but potentially good news for you last-minute shoppers.

Summary: Here's what you need to know for the week ahead in business.


Ruth Wilson and Jake Gyllenhaal

01/14/2015 AT 05:30 PM EST

just might be having the best birthday ever.

at the Golden Globes on Sunday,

actress – who turned 33 on Jan. 13 – took her talents to Broadway with costar

for the opening of their new show,

Continuing their celebrations from Sunday night (the duo partied with the actor's sister

, at various post-Globes parties), Wilson and Gyllenhaal, 34, had a large turnout for their big night.

Singing "Happy Birthday" to Wilson, Gyllenhaal and other guests – including 50 Cent, Jason Biggs, Derek Hough and Jerry Seinfeld – surprised the actress with a birthday cake.

"They all sat together in one area," an onlooker tells PEOPLE about the pair's families at the after-party, which was held at Urbo. "Jake and Ruth were friendly and having a good time. Everyone was celebrating her birthday and Golden Globe award."

The duo – whose new play opened to rave reviews – have seemed cozy in the last few months, but a rep for the actor denies rumors of a romance.

Summary: "Jake and Ruth were friendly and having a good time," an onlooker tells PEOPLE


Succeeding as an entrepreneur takes hard work and persistence because, unfortunately, there is no business-startup fairy who magically bestows success on small businesses and their owners.

Most successful entrepreneurs follow comparable patterns and share similar basic characteristics. Hundreds of online articles and published books claim to know the secret of success in business, but for the most part, they boil down to the same major points.

Passion, perseverance and a positive attitude tend to set successful entrepreneurs apart. Cultivating these attributes requires an innate skill set and some tips to get started.

So here are the main items to take into consideration if you’re trying to develop a business platform. These elements constitute will support a smart strategy for any new enterprise:

Passion is key to keeping a business strategy moving. Half-heartedness in an entrepreneurial endeavor will chip away at your drive to succeed. Perseverance is the one thing that’s guaranteed to move anything over time, whether it’s a person, a job or an entire company. Abraham Lincoln failed at most of his efforts until late in his life, but he never gave up.

Jumping all in is rarely ever successful. There are success stories about people who invested everything once and came out winners after six months or a couple years, but those are rare. Risk management is an essential factor in any startup, and balance is vital. You can absorb losses more easily if you take smaller risks in the beginning. Those will provide essential and productive lessons.

Successful entrepreneurs often worked for others in their field of choice before striking out on their own. Spending a few years in the industry under an excellent mentor will provide a good launching pad. Learn from your predecessors’ mistakes and brainstorm about how to improve upon their model. Find someone willing to teach, and think about starting your business elsewhere when you leave.

Confidence and a good elevator speech can take any pitch to the next level. The first marketing any company experiences comes from its founder. Spend time learning how to share your vision without coming across as “salesy.” Don’t be afraid to ask for the sale, but remember: the client is always the focus.

Entrepreneurs are movers and shakers. They can’t afford to analyze every detail or they’d never get anywhere. There is no place for procrastination in a startup. It’s a 24/7, no-vacation-or-sick-days kind of job that demands constant forward momentum. Make a brief assessment at every step and move on it. Trust your instincts.

Read about successful businesses. Take in the wealth of knowledge that’s been provided by successful entrepreneurs such as Steve Jobs and the personalities from Shark Tank. A successful business plan does not have to be a book. A 10-page plan is digestible yet long enough to include everything you need to start.

According to Brandi Bennett at HostGator.com, maintaining a blog on a well-hosted website, or volunteering your time and skills, shows instead of tells the community, and thereby builds expertise and trust.

Many successful entrepreneurs started later in life. J. K. Rowling (Harry Potter author), Julia Child (chef), and Sam Walton (Wal-Mart) all started their wildly successful brands after they were comfortably along in their lives. Having the experience that comes with age can give you a unique outlook on your business. Life experiences bring depth that the most educated young adult, by his or her nature, is less able to foresee.

Finding the skill sets and attitudes that support the culture of the brand you want to promote will foster innovation and enhance your reputation. Include folks from outside the company for the people you rely on. That will start a free marketing chain reaction that can build confidence and revenue.

The attitude of the founder will set the tone for the business. Negativity, laziness and entitlement waste time and money while they tarnish your reputation. Success largely depends on making mistakes and accepting blame in stride. Owning up to and facing challenges head-on is what makes a mere business owner a leader.

Starting a business can wreak havoc on the owner’s personal life. While all the above tips are necessary for success, taking care of yourself mentally and physically is also imperative. Exercise, sleep and diet play a central role in ensuring you implement these policies successfully. All of them drive attitude, motivation and relationships.

Successful CEOs tend to follow a structured, daily schedule of rising early, exercising, having snacks on hand for fuel and socializing many evenings of the week.

Striking a balance may take a while, but working toward this list as a goal for starting your company will make the difference. How an owner feels about progress and how quickly a business can be up and running — and feeding that bottom line — will swiftly feel the impact.

Success is All in the Attitude

Forget Big Goals. Take Baby Steps for Small, Daily Wins.

The Scientific Reason You Should Trust Your Gut

Summary: Entrepreneurship is a calling. Succeeding at it requires following your impulses and intuition methodically.


A candle lit dinner with a nice bottle of wine, a trip to the movies with a shared bucket of popcorn, a night in with Netflix and cuddling on the couch -- these date ideas can certainly be fun, but sometimes you need to spice it up a little.

Or maybe you need to spice it up a lot?

When it comes to adrenaline junkies and thrill seekers, dinner and a movie doesn't always cut it. When you're thinking of making your next date a little more exciting than your last, we’ve put together a few suggestions. Regardless of where you live, you can find adventurous dates nearby. You don’t need to travel to South Africa to swim with sharks and you don’t need to go to France to try heli-skiing -- these adventures, along with others, can be found across the U.S. All you need is a sense of adventure, a little planning and maybe a long weekend to enjoy a date that will bring you two closer than ever.

For the most addicted adrenaline junkies, bungee jumping is a perfect date idea. Though New Zealand is credited with the advent of the activity, there are many suitable jump spots in the U.S.

The bridge to nowhere over the San Gabriel River in California is an amazing experience, but if you need the biggest, baddest, highest jump head to the Rio Grande Bridge in Taos, N.M. -- the drop is a mind-blowing 680 feet.

It's easy to overlook all the incredible nature and wildlife that’s right in our own backyard. Take time to appreciate the beauty with your date on a U.S. wildlife safari. In Wyoming, Jackson Hole Wildlife Safaris will send you out with an experienced guide to explore the Grand Tetons or Yellowstone National Park.

If you're looking for something a bit more tropical, the Everglades Safari Park in Florida offers unparalleled views of alligators along with airboat rides or kayak tours -- talk about adventure.

It's tough to find a winter date as romantic as a ski adventure and there’s no better way to go above and beyond (literally) than heli-skiing. Though this adventure will cost quite a bit, there are plenty of amazing spots in the U.S. and Canada.

Intermediate skiers should check out Helitrax in Telluride, Colo., and hardcore powder hounds should head to Valdez, Alaska where they'll find the company H2O Guides. H2O is run by world champion skier Dean Cummings and they have 2.6 million acres at their disposal -- it's safe to say you won't be bored.

Strapping a board (or boards) to your feet not your style? Prefer the uphill trek? Snowshoeing is a fun date idea that packs in a vigorous workout, with ample time to talk and gorgeous views.

Head to Mt. Hood, Ore., for the Boy Scout Ridge trail, which starts out nice and easy but builds to gain a total of 1,800 feet of elevation or take to the White Mountains in New Hampshire, which are known for their snowy winters and incredible views and take a moonlit snowshoe tour.

Reach new heights in your relationship -- literally. Rock climbing is a great activity for two. If you or your date is a beginner, hit an indoor course and race each other to the top. If you’re a couple of thrill seekers take a course in outdoor climbing.

Experts say that it’s such a popular activity for couples because it relies heavily on communication and trust, two important aspects in relationships. And as an added bonus it's a great full-body work out. Professional instruction is strongly recommended and you can find indoor and outdoor spots all over the country.

You can't go wrong when the date involves a bunch of adorable dogs and a side of adventure. Though it may seem like an activity lost in time, dogsledding is still widely celebrated.

In the U.S., Mahoosuc Guide Service in Maine offers a variety of experiences and even gives guests an option to train and drive a team of dogs and in Minnesota the Wintergreen Dogsled Lodge was called the best in the business by National Geographic and the area is known for stunning scenery.

If skiing or snowboarding isn't for you, this adventure can take you down the mountain in a totally different way.

Fly from some seriously high peaks at Sun Valley in Idaho or take the leap from the Tetons in Jackson Hole, Wyo. Though you and your date will have to travel separately, you'll share the spectacular experience and can meet at the bottom for a celebratory glass of champagne.

For the complete list of the Adventurous Date Ideas That Will Spice Up Your Relationship, go to TheActiveTimes.com.

More From The Active Times: -- Snowshoeing, Skiing Glades and 7 Other Things You Need to Try this Winter -- Cruise Ship Adventures You Never Knew Existed -- The Best Active Adventures in Cuba -- The World's 15 Craziest Zip Lines

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Tom Brady's Super Bowl 49 Presser

Summary:
By Diana Gerstacker
TheActiveTimes.com
A candle lit dinner with a nice bottle of wine, a trip to the movies with a shared bucket of popcorn, a night i...


Updated MAR 09, 2015 8:38p ET

GLENDALE, Ariz. -- The scouting report on the Diamondbacks' Nick Ahmed reads differently, depending on which of the shortstop's tools is being addressed.

As a prospect, FanGraphs considers him a below-average hitter at 30 to 40 on the 20-80 baseball scouting scale. Defensively, the site views him as a high-level talent, rated at 65. The Diamondbacks might be willing to call that defensive figure inaccurate, even though it's a fine compliment as a subjective statistic could be.

"Nick Ahmed, we feel like he's a guy defensively who's as good as anybody in the major leagues," Arizona manager Chip Hale said at the beginning of spring training. "The rating system, when people scout, an 80 is the best you can be, like a (Albert) Pujols in his prime, a Barry Bonds when he was in his prime. This guy is close to that, as a defender."

And that explains why the 24-year-old is considered a potential option at shortstop as Arizona decides upon an Opening Day roster -- even though Chris Owings, who could be shifted to second base, is on track to return from shoulder surgery in October.

With such high praise toward Ahmed's defensive instincts and abilities, it's fairly obvious what is biggest challenge is in earning a starting job.

"We need to score runs," Hale said. "We need to put people across home plate. That's why I say about Ahmed, the defense is fantastic, we just need to get his offense up to speed with that. Chris (Owings) is pretty much the total package with that."

Ahmed, acquired in 2013 as part of the trade package that sent Justin Upton to the Atlanta Braves, recorded one hit in his final 18 at-bats of 2014 while filling in for the injured Owings. He finished the year hitting .200 with an .233 on-base percentage, but he feels the spot duty wasn't representative of where his swing was or is now.

Ahmed's bat showed some life last summer at Triple-A Reno after a tough 2013 season in Double-A Mobile in which he hit just .236. The 24-year-old finished last year with a slash line of .312/.373/.425 and scored 57 runs in 104 games at Reno, known as a hitter's paradise. Ahmed's big adjustment was lowering his hand placement on the bat.

"Everybody says, oh, it's Reno," Hale said. "You still have to do it."

Translating that success once Ahmed was called up to the majors was difficult. Spot duty didn't help him find confidence at the plate.

"That role was something new to me," he said. "Definitely, didn't really take hold of that role and hit and produce to the best of my abilities, I don't think. It was definitely a learning process. I've gotten a lot better."

On Sunday, Ahmed's seventh-inning double pushed a run across the plate during a 12-2 win against the San Francisco Giants. He followed up that two-hit outing Monday with a 0-for-3 peformance in the D-backs' 3-3 tie against the White Sox.

The most important thing is he's getting a lot of at-bats.

Heading into camp, the staff asked the shortstop if he felt good about his swing. He did. So there's been little tinkering with his mechanics, and the D-backs have allowed Ahmed to go after a roster spot with the tools he's already comfortable with.

"I heard (former MLB player) Kevin Millar talk about, one time, what the minor leagues exist for in baseball, compared to other sports where there's not a minor league system," Ahmed said. "He said, baseball's a game of failure, the minor leagues are designed to teach players how to fail. I kind of took that to heart in 2013 when I was in Mobile and just failed day after day after day for the first two months. I learned more about myself in those two months than I have the rest of my career."

He hopes to use the rest of March to show the D-backs staff how much he's learned from it.

The D-backs already knows he's more than prepared as a shortstop.

Follow Kevin Zimmerman on Twitter

Summary: The Arizona Diamondbacks' Nick Ahmed is considered elite as a shortstop, but he's out to prove his bat is ready for MLB.


Last August, Barcelona photographer Vicens Forner snapped a picture that showed up in newspapers around the globe: In it, a group of young Italian tourists are cavorting through the streets of his seafront neighborhood, Barceloneta. It is mid-afternoon, and the guys are the very image of happy travelers.

For many in working class Barceloneta, the Italian flesh was the last straw. Over the next few evenings, several thousand locals poured onto the humid summer streets to chant and bang pots in protest of tourism overload. Their banners read, “The neighborhood is not for sale.”

Like many European cities, from Paris to Prague to Venice, Barcelona has bet hard on tourism. The city began to woo tourists with the 1992 Olympics, when it cleaned its beaches, built cruise ship docks, expanded its airport, and rehabilitated its neglected Old City, the Ciutat Vella.

And the tourists complied: according to government figures, between 1990 and 2013 the number of annual visitors who stayed overnight exploded from 1.7 million to 7.6 million, and the number of hotel rooms grew from 10,265 to 37,069. Today, tourism account for about 14% of the Barcelona’s economy.

But now many locals are asking, how much tourism is too much?

In this compact city of 1.6 million residents, the tourist impact is impossible to miss. Today, 79% of the people on La Rambla, the main avenue in the Ciutat Vella, are not from Barcelona; 58% are foreign tourists. Packs of bachelor and bachelorette parties from around Europe stumble through the Ciutat Vella at night, regularly vomiting in the streets and hiring prostitutes.

And the effects are not limited to the Ciutat Vella. Tourists groups and buses have made the areas around monuments designed by famed Catalan architect Antoni Gaudí – most notably Park Güell and the Sagrada Familia, both UNESCO World Heritage sites – virtually unrecognizable as residential neighborhoods.

In the most touristic barrios, residents are losing their apartments as landlords convert them into short stay rentals, and it is difficult for those who remain to find stores selling anything but cheap beer, souvenirs, and the No. 10 jersey of Barcelona soccer star Lionel Messi.

It is this loss of local identity, as much as the tourist hordes, that make people like Llum Ventura Gil, a longtime Barceloneta resident who recently left the barrio because of tourism overload, complain that their neighborhoods have been turned into “theme parks.”

“Barcelona is losing its essence,” she says.

Barcelona is not alone, and the struggle of European cities has even spawned a subgenre of documentaries bemoaning mass tourism. Barcelona has Bye Bye Barcelona, a film by Venezuelan filmmaker Eduardo Chibás that has received over 300,000 YouTube views; Berlin has Welcome and Goodbye; and Venice has The Venice Syndrome. (One common feature of the genre? The irritating sound of squads of roller bags clicking over cobblestones.)

The head of Barcelona’s hotel chamber, Jordi Clos, says the city should aim to get to 10 million overnight tourists a year to put it in the “first division” of European cities. But locals question whether mass tourism has already made parts of the city unlivable. Many Barcelonans have fled: between 2006 and 2013, 14,600 people – 12.3% of the population – left Ciutat Vella.

Pushed by citizen protests, the city and regional government has finally begun to take action. Last year it put a moratorium on new licenses for short-stay apartments and fined Airbnb €30,000 for hawking illegal tourist rentals.

After the Barceloneta outburst, it sent more police and inspectors into the neighborhood and began to bust landlords who rent out unlicensed tourist units, quickly closing 170 short-term apartments.

And in late February, some 250 locals packed a public audience (while many more waited outside) to grill one of Barcelona’s deputy mayors on the city’s plans for handling tourism.

But the going is slow and some question whether the local government has the political will to regulate one of Barcelona’s prime industries.

“The government very much favors the big tourism industry, particularly hotels,” says Claire Colomb, an urban planning researcher at University College London. “There are huge economic interests at stake that make regulation very difficult.”

Tourism has enriched cities like Barcelona in financial and other ways. The irony of mass tourism, however, is that it destroys the enchantment that attracted tourists in the first place. It’s unclear if efforts to regulate it will come too late to “save” Barcelona from its success.

“Tourism is unstoppable,” says the filmmaker Chibás. “It’s how you manage it so it doesn’t become another Venice.”

Watch more business news from Fortune:

Summary: Like many European cities, from Paris to Prague to Venice, Barcelona has bet hard on tourism. And it’s now paying a price for its good fortune.


While an obvious plug to the show's parent company, Disney Night made for some of the most inventive routines yet – not to mention some of the most creative costumes yet (

in full-on purple body paint!).

Paying homage to Disney favorites both new and old, the stars channeled their favorite characters while animated support "joined them," appearing on-screen at home. A cute idea in theory, it usually just took attention away from the performance or was so fleeting it was easy to be forgotten.

The night got a slow start, but the final three stars of the night – Rumer,

– hit the ballroom floor with sets to remember. Elsewhere, opener

Read on for the highlights of

Judging by her vampy performance, Suzanne was clearly taking her hormones tonight. She looked great in glittering black sequins and stepped onto the stage with a renewed confidence. But it was Tony – with his flirtatious moves – who played the perfect tramp. A heel-and-hem hiccup aside, it was fine technically and, as judge

conceded, "It was definitely your best dance." All that was missing? Chemistry. Despite their best efforts (including the good old let's-hold-a-hat-over-our-faces-and-pretend-we're-kissing trick), it wasn't convincing. Woof, indeed.

Before we get to their delightful hot mess of a quickstep, can we talk about how shamelessly smitten Robert is with Kym? If the video opener is to be believed, he was drooling over Ms. Johnson all week in practice – not to mention sexualizing Mary Poppins in a way that would probably make

blush. (See: "I think Kym has become Mary Poppins â¦ a very sexy Mary Poppins, by the way." See also: "I'm gonna love you in a Mary Poppins outfit.") Despite their incredible on- and off-the-dance floor sparks, this week's routine fell flat. The star got off on the wrong foot, literally, and was off the beat. Even so, Robert brought the "razzle-dazzle," as judge

put it, and was beaming like he does when a

contestant brings a dog to their pitch. Extra points to Robert for always being a spoonful of sugar.

In a word, Riker and Allison's

-themed routine was explosive. The

alum made the paso doble his wench, hitting all the right moves in a way Jack Sparrow never could because he'd be too sloshed. The production was grand (the ship! a cannon!), but unlike

's routine, Riker and Allison's choreography never got lost in the jumble. It was clear that Riker, a huge fan of the movie, was having fun from the first foot-stomp, making for infectious, can't-take-your-eyes-off-him television. "That is what I call artistry," said Julianne. "Technique, concept, passion, showmanship: That is what artistry is about. Well done."

Asked what princess she wants to be this week, Rumer burst into a laugh: "Can I be a villain?" Lucky for viewers, Val complied. Prepping to play Ursula, she actually jumped in a pool to practice channeling the evil octopus's underwater moves. She got into character once she hit the ballroom, too: Emerging from Ursula's grotto, Rumer's moves were fluid and downright sexy. And when she got up in the judge's faces, lip-synching the "make your choice!" lyric? Delicious.

"Love Is an Open Door" from

"No one's really seen the more silly side of me," said Nastia in her opening video. And she's right. With her signature steely gaze, the Olympian would seemingly be better suited to play ice queen Elsa than sweet, young thing Anna – but she warmed up, and she did it with flair. Her waltz with Derek was grand yet playful, and it was clear on her face she was having fun. Summing it up perfectly, "That was like a warm hug on a cold evening," said Len, of the performance that merited the most points (tied with Rumer and Val).

So how did the other competitors (Willow Shields,

) score? And who was sent home?

airs Mondays (8 p.m. ET) on ABC.

10 Years of Dancing with the Stars

Summary: Hey, Mickey! This week, the stars channeled their favorite characters from the Mouse House


Add hip eyewear startup Warby Parker to Fortune’s Unicorn List: the company has raised a new funding round of $100 million that pushes its valuation over the $1 billion mark.

The new valuation of $1.2 billion, first reported by the Wall Street Journal, comes after a round led by T. Rowe Price, the publicly traded money management firm that had revenues of nearly $4 billion last year. T. Rowe Price has invested recently in other notable tech “unicorns” including Flipkart and Lookout. The founders of those two companies—Sachin and Binny Bansal and John Hering, respectively—have all landed on Fortune‘s 40 Under 40 list in the past few years.

We named David Gilboa and Neil Blumenthal, the Warby Parker founders, “Ones to Watch” in 2012.

Warby Parker launched in 2010, selling designer eyeglasses for under $100, with a “one for one” model that the founders said was directly influenced by Toms and its founder, Blake Mycoskie. Toms began in shoes but soon launched additional product lines with the same one-for-one model, including eyeglasses and sunglasses—which makes it a Warby competitor. (In an interview with Fortune last year, Mycoskie said that the Warby founders reached out to him for guidance before they launched, but because Toms was already planning its eyewear line, he couldn’t respond or help them.)

Like a handful of other businesses that began with a web-only model but have since opened brick-and-mortar shops—dress rental site Rent the Runway, for example, or pants retailer Bonobos—Warby eventually began opening up store locations (its flagship location is in Manhattan’s SoHo neighborhood) and now has 12 of them in the U.S., with plans to open eight more this year.

In June of last year, the company announced it had given away one million pairs of eyeglasses, meaning it had also sold one million pairs.

Blumenthal and Gilboa have described their company to Fortune as more than a consumer brand. Blumenthal said he believes that investors look at the company “through the lenses” of social enterprise and e-commerce company, as well. “What they’re finding,” he said, “is our metrics and performance is best in class in each category.”

Achieving a billion-dollar valuation after five years puts Warby Parker at about the average compared to young companies that reached the milestone very rapidly, like one-year-old Slack and three-year-old Tinder, and others that took longer to get there, like Shazam, which has been around since 2002, and Quickr, founded in 2008.

Warby Parker still is not profitable, but says that its sales are growing each year.

Summary: Investors now value the eyeglass startup at $1.2 billion.