The point of running a business is to make a profit. So it seems odd that, when companies move to integrate their operations, they so often leave finance out of the picture.

With robots like BigDog and the Terminator-like Atlas, Google's robotics efforts have been a smash success - if you measure by YouTube views and buzz. Amazon's work has been more behind scenes (apart from the widely discussed plans for delivery drones). But Amazon's energies in robotics have also had a more immediate payoff than Google's "moonshots." The differing philosophies illustrate how Amazon and Google have taken starkly different paths so far in the race to automate the physical world.

In the not-so-far-off future, teens won't bother getting driver's licenses, consumers will shun owning their own cars, and taxis will be replaced by "taxibots."

Corporations pay lip service to enforcing human rights and fair working conditions in offshore factories. But the deaths and injuries continue.

Gender inequality is not only a pressing moral and social issue but also a critical economic challenge. If women - who account for half the world's working-age population - do not achieve their full economic potential, the global economy will suffer.

Blacks spend less money in black-owned businesses than other racial and ethnic groups spend in businesses owned by members of their groups, including Hispanics and Asians.