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Congress' Tax Chiefs Want You to Help Make the Tax Code Simpler

Muneeza Iqbal — Fri, 10 May 2013 11:43:00 EST

Filed under: Taxes, U.S. Government, Tax Changes

Tom Williams/Roll CallRep. Dave Camp, R-Mich., right, and Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont.

Each year, the average American doing her own taxes spends 13 hours just on pretax planning, gathering records and such -- and that's before filling out the first line of her tax return. That adds up to about 6 billion hours being wasted annually, and it's one of the many reasons why U.S. Rep. Dave Camp (R-Mich), chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, and Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, came together Thursday to launch a new online platform where people can suggest the changes they want to see in the tax code.

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Through TaxReform.gov, the congressmen hope to start a discussion between lawmakers and everyday folks about the difficulties they have with the system, and use their suggestions to devise a modern new tax code. Previous attempts to modify the tax code have only added more layers of complexity to it, as well as building in loopholes that allow corporations and the wealthy to evade taxes.

Because of their roles as the heads of the two congressional committees that germinate tax law, any genuine change in the tax code will start with (or at the very least, near) Baucus and Camp, and they want the public to help them make it happen. "We are dedicated to writing bills in an open and transparent fashion. No cutting deals behind closed doors," they state on their website.

A perfect tax system might be too ambitious a goal for the imperfect world of politics, but Baucus and Camp hope to simplify it and make it more fair for American families. If you'd like to help them, they're waiting for your input.

Gallery: The 10 Biggest Things Your Income Taxes Pay For

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Why the Best Low-Income Students Don't Go to Top Colleges

Muneeza Iqbal — Wed, 01 May 2013 14:02:00 EST

Filed under: College

Getty Images

Despite America's egalitarian ideals, there's a dearth of students from low-income high schools attending our elite colleges and universities. As DailyFinance senior writer Bruce Watson explains, part of the problem is that these students lack resources at their schools that would let them know a top college was an option; as a result, even the brightest are unaware of the opportunities available to them.

However, with elite schools clustered around urban areas, is geography preventing students from achieving what they could? Do they even realize that they can get the same funding available to fellow students in the rest of the country? Watch the rest of the discussion in the videos below.

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What's With All the Hungry Thieves? Food Heists Are Becoming a Trend

Muneeza Iqbal — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 05:00:00 EST

Filed under: Food & Beverage, Ripoffs & Scams

Alamy

Based on a spate of unusual robberies around the world recently, thieves aren't just money-hungry anymore -- they're plain hungry. These sticky-fingered felons have avoided robbing banks and instead made off with mass quantities of foodstuffs, from soup to Nutella. Here's a rundown of some of the tastier capers we've seen lately:

Gallery: Our Favorite Hungry Thieves

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Something Green: Environmentally Friendly Wedding Dresses

Muneeza Iqbal — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 09:00:00 EST

Filed under: Green, Marriage, Wedding Planning, Clothing & Accessories

(C)Louise Fairburn

Something old, something new, something borrowed, something ... green?

Wedding season is almost here, and apart from wreaking havoc on your wallet, it can also cause some damage to the environment. Some 2.5 million weddings will be held across the nation this year, each of which produces 600 to 800 tons of waste, according to the Green Bride Guide.

One way to cut down on that number is to reconsider the traditional wedding dress -- expensive to produce, bleached a starchy white and usually worn only once. If you're an eco-minded bride-to-be, let these creative, affordable and environmentally friendly ideas inspire you.

Gallery: Save the Environment and your Wallet with these Wedding Dresses

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Want to Make Extra Money While Being Green? Try Worm Farming

Muneeza Iqbal — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 06:00:00 EST

Filed under: Green, Small Business, Small Business Advice

Bentley Christie runs a small farm in his suburban Canadian backyard. But unlike most backyard farmers, he doesn't raise chickens, nor does he plant fruits and vegetables. Instead, he harvests crops of wriggling red worms.

To hear Christie tell it, a worm farm is a pretty ideal small business. It doesn't require much space because a pound of worms -- about a thousand creepy-crawlies -- needs only a square foot of surface area. They live in bins that are easy to make at home, and they're relatively self-sufficient, too, since they eat food scraps and don't need to be cleaned up after.

Christie sells many of his worms for fishing bait, animal feed and natural fertilizer, but an increasing number are purchased by people who use them at home for composting kitchen garbage.

Christie's interest in vermicomposting started as a "kooky" hobby, he says, back when he worked at an environmental consulting firm where red worms were being used for lab testing. He noticed one day that his colleague kept some of the worms in a bin under the desk to compost her lunch scraps.

"Seeing how they were converting her lunch scraps into beautiful black gold won me over in an instant," he remembers. "She ended up sending me with a bunch of worms that same day."

More Worms, Less Waste

In 2010, Americans produced almost 4.5 pounds of waste per person per day. Worms can help reduce the amount of that waste ending up in landfills by eating garbage such as food scraps, tea bags and even your junk mail, and converting it into rich fertilizer for your garden.

For beginners, Christie suggests starting off with just a pound of worms so that you can see how quickly they eat (they also tend to multiply very quickly, so it's safer to start off small). If kept in an optimal environment, worms can devour up to half of their weight in a day.

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For those who might feel a bit squeamish about keeping worms in their basements or yards, Christie is quick to reassure that worms don't attract pests -- especially when kept indoors. And as long as the compost doesn't overflow the bin, it doesn't smell either. And don't worry about escapees taking up residence in your bedroom. "They are designed to live in a moist environment, not a typical human dwelling," he says. "If they do escape, they dry up and die."

Rob Dumouchel set up his first worm bin a month ago and hasn't had any trouble. "Give them somewhere dark and moist to live, add something good to eat, and they take care of everything else from there," he says. He had a few escapees the first night, but he chalks that up to not setting up the container correctly. So far, his crawlies seem to be especially fond of coffee grounds.

Farming Worms for Fun and Profit

For budding worm-preneurs, the business of raising the wigglers can be "quite profitable," Christie says. Startup costs are low, and worms can double their numbers in about 90 days. In Canada, he sells a starter kit containing two bags of worms, cocoons, and culture for about $40 for two bags, and he ships worms all over the U.S. for $36 per pound. "They are pretty tough," he says, though he encourages recipients to keep a lookout for their mail when they're expecting an order, lest the worms get too dehydrated.

Red worms, European nightcrawlers and white worms are all good for vermicomposting and reasonably weather-hardy; Christie keeps his red worms outdoors in protected beds all year round.

When he's not raising worms, he maintains a website, Red Worm Composting, with just about everything you need to know for trying it at home (and quite a few things you'd wish you didn't -- "worm tea," anyone?)

Christie's advice to first-time worm farmers is to focus on the creatures' comfort: "There's no such thing as too much quality bedding."

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Wesley Snipes is Out of Prison, and Into House Arrest

Muneeza Iqbal — Fri, 05 Apr 2013 17:31:00 EST

Filed under: Taxes, Celebrities

Andrew Medichini, AP Actor Wesley Snipes attends the "Brooklyn's Finest" photocall during the 66th Venice Film Festival Sept. 8, 2009.

After serving more than two years in jail for tax evasion, actor Wesley Snipes was released earlier this week, though he will remain under house confinement until July 19.

Snipes, 50, began his three-year sentence on Dec. 9, 2010 in northern Pennsylvania after he was charged for failing to file his tax returns from 1999 to 2001. However, he was acquitted of felony fraud and filing false tax claims. According to TMZ, he was released on Tuesday. Snipes -- who is famous for his roles in the "Blade" trilogy, "Rising Sun," and "White Men Can't Jump," among other films -- owes the government $7 million, as reported by the New York Daily News. In June 2011, he appealed his sentence arguing that it was too harsh, but the Supreme Court refused to hear the appeal.

It is unclear where he will spend the remainder of his sentence. At the time of his arrest, he was living in a suburb of Orlando, Fla. Snipes has five children and is married to painter Nakyung "Nikki" Park.

GALLERY: Celebrity Tax Delinquents

Gallery: Celebrity Tax Delinquents

Reuters contributed reporting to this article.

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Mom and Pop Businesses that Made It Big

Muneeza Iqbal — Fri, 29 Mar 2013 05:00:00 EST

Filed under: Small Business, Entrepreneurs

Getty Images

Everyone remembers that restaurant in their hometown -- the family-run joint where the food was mouth-watering and the proprietors were on a first-name basis with all their regulars. Well, today is National Mom and Pop Business Owners Day, a day to celebrate small, family-run businesses like that, and the hard work and perseverance it takes to make them great.

But as we take a moment to recall those one-of-a-kind endeavors -- the independent bookstores, the B&B's, the diners -- it's also worth noting that some of America's most popular brands started off as humble mom-and-pop shops.

Here are just a few:

Gallery: Mom and Pop's Businesses that Made it Big

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Powerball Jackpot Bounces to $600 Million: Here's Your Lottery Lowdown

Muneeza Iqbal — Wed, 20 Mar 2013 14:43:00 EST

Filed under: Family Money, Personal Finance

ZUMAPress.com

Here we go again: Saturday night's Powerball drawing could win somebody $600 million or more, the second-largest lottery jackpot ever. And before that, Friday's Mega Millions lottery will offer a shot at a not-too-shabby prize of at least $190 million. The odds of winning either of those amazing jackpots are less than 1 in 175 million, but the statistics will never discourage those who dream of instant wealth.

But maybe they should. Let's do a quick review of what we know about lotteries, and lottery winners.

It's Not the Jackpot You Think It Is: If you win the Powerball, you won't actually see the whole $550 million. Uncle Sam places heavy taxes on income that high, so a handsome chunk of your winnings will go to the government. Ironically, a majority of people -- even among the ones who say that the rich should be taxed more -- feel that those lucky souls who win the lottery shouldn't have to pay as much in taxes as people who make their money in more conventional ways.

It's a Bad Deal for the Biggest Players: The thought of winning millions is attractive to everyone, but especially attractive to lower classes, who spend up to 9 percent of their income on lottery tickets. With personal debt and unemployment rates at painful levels, who can blame people for being hopeful? But the statistics show that the lottery is a sucker bet. Saddest of all, though the odds are vastly better that you'll get struck by lighting or die from flesh-eating bacteria than win a big lottery payout, 21 percent of American adults agreed with this entirely false statement: "Winning the lottery represents the most practical way [for me] to accumulate several hundred thousand dollars."

A Useful Analogy: Winning the lottery is a lot like retiring: Suddenly, you have all this money and you don't have to work anymore. It's easy to make some impulsive splurges, but remember, the longer your wealth lasts, the longer you benefit from it. And be warned: Major windfalls can attract a large number of new "best friends."

You Won! Then You Lost!: Most of us believe that if we won the lottery, we'd be set for life. But the sudden gains of a lottery windfall can be fleeting. Consider the sad case of Sharon Tirabassi of Hamilton, Ontario, who won $10 million and had almost none of it left less than a decade later.

Check Out These Lottery-Related Articles from DailyFinance

Gallery: The 10 States That Pay Out the Biggest Lottery Jackpots

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Save Some Green for St. Patrick's Day: This Weekend's Best Deals

Muneeza Iqbal — Sat, 16 Mar 2013 05:00:00 EST

Filed under: Deals, Saving, Food

Every Friday, DailyFinance scours deal sites, social media and retailer emails to find the best deals that are available the coming weekend. Here are a few of the best we found, just in time for St. Patrick's Day weekend!

Whether you want to celebrate St. Patrick's Day in New York City or Savannah, Ga., Priceline has got your back with some insane green deals that are valid through March 20. So book a hotel, flight, cruise, or just rent a car to get you to your destination. And it wouldn't be a St. Patrick's Day discount if they didn't offer you deals on hotels in Dublin.

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If you've already got the car and are hungry on the road, check out this deal at Arby's that BeFrugal.com pointed out to us. You and a friend can with a buy one, get one free deal on Reuben sandwiches. Of course, we aren't saying you can't enjoy both corned beef delights on your own.

BeFrugal.com also suggests that if you're having a St. Patrick's Day themed party, you might want to consider some holiday spirited sweets. All green Jelly Belly candy is 15% off through Sunday. So buy some for your guests, and maybe stock up on some extras for a rainy day.

And to all the Irish (and wanna-be Irish) baseball fans out there, MLB.com is offering discounts on all its green gear. So, if you want save some cash for other parts of your Irish celebration, while simultaneously embracing the "wearing of the green" and supporting your favorite team, this is the deal for you.

Photo Credit: Alamy

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SXSW's Favorites: Do They Really Become the Next Big Thing?

Muneeza Iqbal — Fri, 15 Mar 2013 13:00:00 EST

Filed under: Technology, Small Business, Mobile Technology

(NASA)

Every March, Austin absorbs a massive influx of talented artists and entrepreneurs for the South By Southwest Conference & Festivals, aka SXSW. There, they get to network, bask in each others' genius, and showcase their own work, while those of us who aren't able to attend salivate in anticipation, waiting to see what "next big thing" will be revealed at the festival.

Sometimes, it really is the next big thing: In 2007, Twitter set up massive screens at the Austin Convention Center to encourage attendees to tweet about their experiences. The company won the conference's Web Award (now known as Interactive Awards) in the blog category, and even though the company had been around since 2006, that SXSW proved its real coming-out party.

But how good is SXSW at reading the tech world tea leaves? We've looked at a few of its past award winners to see how they fared after their shining moments in Austin.

2012

Storify (Social Media): Thanks to the boom in social media, our thoughts and moments tend to be scattered across a multitude of sites: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and others. Storify helps you pull it all back together, weaving those threads into timelines with coherent narratives -- in other words, your stories. And it works with input from large groups as well. Founder Xavier Damman says Storify has been used by the New York Times and the White House to document various events, and people have pooled the social input from friends and family to "storify" their weddings and birthdays. The site's popularity has been growing rapidly, but there have been some privacy concerns as of late.

2011

Airbnb (Mobile Award): Airbnb connects travelers seeking cheap and convenient lodging, with ordinary folks who have some space they'd like to rent out temporarily. Although Airbnb had been around since 2008, the launch of its mobile app has made it faster and easier to use (and won it this award). The company has been associated with its share of scandals and rental disasters, but none have cut into its growing popularity.

2010

Aadvark (Community Award): This popular search engine connected users with a network of their friends and friends of friends to answer their questions. Google acquired the company around the time it won this accolade, but shut it down a year later. It may have seemed like a great idea at the time, but the evolution of social media rapidly made it fairly obsolete.

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Gowalla (Mobile Award): One of the first location-based social media sites, Gowalla allowed users to "check in" wherever they were. The app was similar to Foursquare, which was also nominated in this category. Facebook acquired Gowalla in 2011, and then shut it down a year later. Meanwhile, Foursquare lived on, and has grown substantially. One can find celebrities like President Obama "checking in" to places and giving tips.

2009

Gigotron (Mobile Award): Given the continued popularity of hipster culture, you would have thought this app would have been thriving today. As founder and CEO Benjamin Satterfield put it, Gigotron was the Fandango of concerts. Music lovers could scour all upcoming gigs on one app, based on location and genre. Even the most obscure bands were featured on the app. However, hipster culture thrives on irony, and Gigatron came to an ironic end: A year after it beat AP Mobile News Network for the Mobile Award at SXSW, the app was removed from the iTunes App Store.

2008

Mosio (Mobile Award): Mosio realized that that texting was becoming the preferred method of communication among a large demographic, and that texting really did offer some advantages to actually talking over the phone. They now cater to over a million businesses and people, improving the customer service industry, various other service industries, and are even helping schools reach out to their students. In essence, they are making communication faster, secure, and anonymous when needed.

So What About This Year's Winners?

Earlier this week, SXSW picked its best in show entries. Will they be Twitters, or Aardvarks? Only time will tell. But we do have an opinion.

SoundCloud (Community Award): SoundCloud links listeners with the musicians they listen to. The social media/music platform makes it easy for anyone to upload their "sounds" and connect with their fans. Users can listen to podcasts, be introduced to aspiring artists and their work, or simply rock out to classics like the Rolling Stones. SoundCloud has been gaining momentum since it's launch in Europe in 2007, and doesn't seem likely to fizzle out anytime soon.

NASA Mars Curiosity Rover (Social Media Award): In a successful attempt by NASA to make something potentially boring and nerdy into something fun and interactive for social media junkies (i.e., Gen Y), the robot exploring Mars is sharing its wit in frequent 140 character updates.

"I was sent to Mars to find evidence of past habitable environments. Achievement unlocked!"

Pretty adorable, though probably not very sustainable long term. Still, with over 1 million followers, he's probably the most popular robot in the social media universe these days.

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Algorithms Gone Wild: 3 Cases of Computers We Trusted Too Much

Muneeza Iqbal — Wed, 13 Mar 2013 05:00:00 EST

Filed under: Technology, Retail, Investing

Remember a few years ago when Facebook (FB) started suggesting you "reconnect" with old friends, and some of its suggestions were exes and ex-friends you really didn't need to be reminded of? That was an algorithm they used -- and fortunately got rid of -- to help people connect with friend's they hadn't had much recent activity with on the site.

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Because of embarrassing algorithm fails like this one, companies are slowly starting to delegate work away from the computers and back to humans. Twitter for example, has real people always ready to interpret the context of a search when there is a sudden surge in its frequency. When Mitt Romney referenced Big Bird during the presidential debates last year, there was a gush of people searching for "Big Bird." A computer would automatically direct these people to "Sesame Street" related hits, but real humans knew otherwise.

Those automated algorithms remain the most obvious and efficient way to keep up with today's fast-paced world: Computer programs can be better equipped to spot trends or even deal with consumers' intricate demands than flesh-and-blood employees. But what happens when an algorithm fails? Putting a bit too much authority into the virtual hands of a program can -- and has -- led to some epic fails. Before they replace any more workers with software, companies might want to consider the following cases of good algorithms gone bad.

Random Rudeness on T-shirts

No so long ago, business was booming for Michael Fowler's online T-shirt company, Solid Gold Bomb. The tiny, five-worker company had became known for their customizable "Keep Calm and Carry On" T-shirts that let the consumer to modify the now-famous logo in countless ways. Fowler had designed an algorithm that would randomly select short, two-word phrases to follow "Keep Calm and ... ," thus creating a unique shirt that the customer could order. If they didn't like what the computer picked, they could simply try again for a phrase more to their liking.

Slogans like "Keep Calm and Drink Beer" quickly became favorites. But then something went wrong. A few weekends ago, Fowler was relaxing in his Melbourne home when Facebook notifications started pouring in: death threats and accusations of misogyny. Turns out, the algorithm's dictionary hadn't been culled for potentially offensive content, and suddenly customers were being offered shirts with phrases like "Keep Calm and Hit Her." Indeed, some had already been ordered. Fowler canceled them all, and deleted the offensive options -- indeed, deleted almost all of the parody "Keep Calm" shirts -- from the site. He claims these were just computer-generated images and that none had actually been printed.

The company has posted a lengthy apology on its site, but sales have plummeted and Fowler is afraid the company will soon go under if the public can't get past this incident.

Insane Prices on Amazon

Would you spend $23.6 million to buy one copy of a book titled "The Making of a Fly: The Genetics of Animal Design"? Unless you really, really want to create your own fly from scratch, it's probably a bad investment.

However, this book -- now available for a mere $79.99 on Amazon -- reached that unusual selling price courtesy of two unknowingly price-warring third-party merchants on Amazon (AMZN). A UC Berkeley post-doc who actually wanted to purchase it was amused by the absurd prices, and passed the puzzle on to biology professor Michael Eisen, who tried to figure out what was going on.

Turns out, Amazon merchant Bordeebook had programmed its algorithm so that, once each day, it set the price for that book at about 127 percent of what competing merchants charged. In this case, another seller, Profnath, was trying to keep its price for the out-of-print text at about 99 percent of what the competition charged, and it too, used the algorithm to reset its prices daily.

Why would Bordeebook intentionally charge more than the competition? Eisen speculates that Bordeebook didn't actually have the book in hand, and would have had to buy it elsewhere to satisfy a customer's purchase request. Thus, to ensure it would make a profit, it quoted a price higher price than other merchants, hoping its good customer ratings would lure a buyer regardless.

On the other hand, Eisen suggests, Profnath probably had the book, and wanted to keep its price just a hair lower than the competition. The result: Each day, Bordeebook set its price higher, and Profnath followed close behind. Because both were using algorithms, neither was aware of just how wildly overvalued the book on insect anatomy had become. When someone finally noticed and the crazy algorithm-induced bubble popped, the prices deflated down to around $100. Today, several mint condition copies are available on Amazon, all for under $200.

Bungee Jumping With the Dow

Million-dollar books are entertaining, but the Flash Crash was a pricing algorithm implosion too, and one that affected a significantly larger population.

On May 6, 2010, toward the end of the trading day, the Dow plummeted 600 points in just a few minutes, then recovered most of the loss almost immediately. A Securities and Exchange Commission investigation later revealed that a mutual fund had dumped an unusually large volume of contracts in the market during a 20-minute period. That much activity taking place in such a short time triggered a response from the computers of high-frequency traders, which started to aggressively sell too, accelerating the effect and causing the market to crater.

Though the market recovered quickly, some people lost thousands of dollars, and some companies lost millions.

High-frequency traders use computers to trade assets entirely based on algorithms. They are programmed to analyze the behaviors of various markets, buying and selling stocks that they often hold only for a matter of seconds. Regulations have changed since then, but algorithms still rule our stock markets, and those algorithms can make expensive mistakes.

Photo Credits: Getty Images | Amazon.com

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Not Saving Enough? Your Native Language May Be to Blame

Muneeza Iqbal — Wed, 06 Mar 2013 05:00:00 EST

Filed under: Retirement Plans, How to Save Money, Planning, Saving

If you're reading this without the help of Google Translate, chances are your saving habits stink, and you're not as healthy as you could be either.

According to recent research by Yale University behavioral economist Keith Chen, the language you speak plays an important role in how you approach saving money. This might seem absurd, but his research has shown a strong correlation between language and future decision-making.

"Languages force you to pay attention to time," Chen explains. Languages such as English, French, Italian and Tamil are what he calls "strong future-time reference languages" -- languages that have a different tense for the future. "Weak future-time reference languages," such as Mandarin and German, don't make as much of a distinction between the present and the future; in German, for example, "Morgen regent es" translates as "it rains tomorrow."

The greater the linguistic distinction between present and future, Chen says, the less likely you are to plan ahead. That may be why speakers of future-less languages are likely to have 39 percent more wealth than their future-speaking counterparts by the time they retire. They are also 31 percent more likely to have saved more.

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The study also found that future-language speakers tend to be unhealthier: They get less exercise, practice unsafe sex, and smoke more than their future-less language counterparts. According to Chen, they choose "current pleasure in exchange for future pain." He realizes that the whole premise sounds far-fetched, but his research has yielded statistical evidence showing that future-less language speakers are 24 percent less likely to smoke, 29 percent more likely to exercise, and 13 percent less likely to be obese.

Critics of Chen's work suggest that the differences observed are not related to language but rather to culture. But he responds that he controlled for that factor by testing in multilingual countries. In those nations, he notes, you can find families living next to each other with the exact same education and socioeconomic factors, but different languages, and different levels of saving. Sure enough, the families conversing in the future-less language were on average saving more.

Chen says that what his study essentially shows is "how we represent these problems to ourselves." So instead of purchasing a copy of Rosetta Stone, you might want to consider changing your perception of time.

Photo Credit: Alamy

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The Makers: Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg on Empowering Women

Muneeza Iqbal — Tue, 26 Feb 2013 15:30:00 EST

Filed under: People

She paved a way for herself in male-dominated Silicon Valley, and now she's encouraging other women to join her. Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook's (FB) chief operating officer since 2008, aims to launch a new women's movement with her soon-to-be-published manifesto, "Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead."

Sandberg tells her story in "Makers: Women Who Make America," a new documentary airing Tuesday. An initiative by PBS and AOL, the film chronicles the past 50 years of the women's movement through the experiences of pioneers in business, media and the workplace. (Check your local listings for times.)

Before she was one of the tech world's biggest stars, Sandberg was a self-described "really serious geek." (To any geeky high school girl who may be watching, Sandberg says earnestly, "It works out.") She graduated summa cum laude from Harvard, where her thesis adviser was economics professor Larry Summers, who later recruited her for a job in Washington when he became Treasury Secretary in 1999.

As Sandberg tells it, her passion for public service was what led her to a high-powered career in the tech business, first at Google (GOOG), which she joined in 2001, and now at Facebook. "I kinda had to get over the fact that these were for-profit companies," she says. "But I believed they were for-profit companies that were really changing who we were as people and how we interacted." In her first three years running operations at Facebook, the company grew tenfold, bringing in $2 billion in annual revenue.

A mother of two who dismisses the whole concept of work-life balance -- "There's work and there's life, and there's no balance," she says -- Sandberg hopes to communicate her philosophy of "big dreams and big goals" to a new generation of women with discussion groups she's calling "Lean In Circles."

To hear more from Sandberg, and to see interviews with more than 150 Makers in business, politics, sports, arts and more, go to Makers.com.

The Makers: Xerox CEO Ursula Burns Tells Her Story

Muneeza Iqbal — Mon, 25 Feb 2013 05:00:00 EST

Filed under: Technology, CEOs, People

When Ursula Burns started as an intern at Xerox more than 30 years ago, she had no idea that she would someday end up running the company. "I just chose to work," she says simply.

But it's safe to say that she probably wasn't entirely surprised. Burns -- who became the first African-American female CEO of a Fortune 500 company when she took the reins of Xerox (XRX) in 2009 -- has never lacked for confidence. "I learned from my mother that if you have a chance to speak, you should speak. If you have an opinion, you should make it be known."

Burns tells her personal story in "Makers: Women Who Make America," a new documentary film airing on Tuesday, Feb. 26. An initiative of PBS and AOL, the film chronicles the past 50 years of the women's movement, through the experiences of trailblazers like Burns and other pioneers in business, media and the workplace. (Check your local listings for air times.)

A summer internship turned into a full-time job in 1981, when Xerox hired Burns as soon as she completed her master's degree in mechanical engineering at Columbia University. It wasn't necessarily the predictable path for someone who grew up "very, very poor" in a Manhattan housing project, raised by a single mother "who was struggling to feed us properly and make sure that we got a good education," Burns recounts in the film.

A few years later, her mother's admonition to speak up brought Burns to the attention of Xerox senior executive Wayland Hicks when she challenged him over the role of women and minorities at the company. By 1990, she was Hicks's top assistant, starting her ascent up the corporate ladder. At the age of 51, almost three decades after joining the company as an intern, she was named CEO.

Both Forbes and Fortune magazine have consistently named Burns one of the most powerful women in business. But she remains down-to-earth. The day she got the top job, she says, she called home and her daughter answered. "I was made CEO today," she said. "Yeah," her daughter replied. "Wanna talk to Dad?"

Burns points out that her appointment wasn't the only history made that day. She took over the job from then-Xerox CEO Anne Mulcahy, making it the first female-to-female CEO transition in Fortune 500 history.

Read More about Makers: Women Who Make America,
One of NYC's First Female Firefighters: Brenda Berkman
Soul Surfer Bethany Hamilton Makes her Mark in Makers Documentary
First Woman IndyCar Driver: Danica Patrick
Nora Ephron on Real-Life Inspiration for 'When Harry Met Sally'

To see interviews with more than 150 Makers in business, politics, sports, arts and more, go to Makers.com.

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DailyFinance.com

Congress' Tax Chiefs Want You to Help Make the Tax Code Simpler

Why the Best Low-Income Students Don't Go to Top Colleges

What's With All the Hungry Thieves? Food Heists Are Becoming a Trend

Something Green: Environmentally Friendly Wedding Dresses

Want to Make Extra Money While Being Green? Try Worm Farming

Wesley Snipes is Out of Prison, and Into House Arrest

Mom and Pop Businesses that Made It Big

Powerball Jackpot Bounces to $600 Million: Here's Your Lottery Lowdown

Check Out These Lottery-Related Articles from DailyFinance

Save Some Green for St. Patrick's Day: This Weekend's Best Deals

SXSW's Favorites: Do They Really Become the Next Big Thing?

Algorithms Gone Wild: 3 Cases of Computers We Trusted Too Much

Not Saving Enough? Your Native Language May Be to Blame

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