Facebook may finally be ready to go public.

FORTUNE -- One common refrain heard at this year's World Economic Forum in Davos: "we need to create more jobs." That's hardly a controversial stance -- after all no one is really against creating jobs. The sense here is that if we can just figure out a way to create more employment the Occupiers would disappear and business could return to the good old days. The rub is that with high consumer and government debt levels in much of the developed world, no one seems to have any idea how to achieve this goal. One exception is Michael Spence, a Nobel laureate in economics and a professor at NYU, who thinks he has a breakthrough idea on the topic.

FORTUNE -- President Obama's newfound commitment to natural gas could be the spark needed to reignite the fledgling natural gas industry, while at the same time breathing life into an array of new businesses. Overproduction, coupled with anemic demand, has recently sent natural gas prices tumbling to a 10-year low, delivering a big hit to the dozens of energy companies invested in large-scale natural gas drilling projects across the US.

FORTUNE -- When it comes to executive experience, this is not Jim Haworth's first rodeo. The Professional Bull Riders CEO was an executive vice president at Sears (SHLD), chairman of Chinese retail company Chia Tai Enterprises International Ltd., and spent 20 years at Wal-Mart (WMT) before that. Haworth took the reins at PBR in 2011 with the aim of turning what most people think of as one event at the rodeo into a modern, mainstream sport. Things are looking up, he says, "What's exciting about the PBR is that we're a profitable sporting event. If you go out and look, there's not that many of those." Still, Haworth has his eyes on bigger things -- more networks broadcasting bull riding and an expanded global fan base. He spoke to Fortune about marketing to "buckle bunnies," taking the New England Patriots' Chad Ochocinco up on a challenge, and pleasing the Facebook fans of a bull named Bushwacker. Here is an edited transcript of our conversation.

Calls the suggestion that his company doesn't care about the health and safety of workers in the supply chain he built "patently false and offensive"

It is every parents' dream that their children enjoy a better life than they have. I am not sure if that's also true for parent companies and their offspring.

Bain Capital has been getting kicked around all month, and now it's finally beginning to play some public defense.

In business as in private life, all successful relationships run on trust. Yet we often get trust wrong, giving it either too readily or too stingily. From Bernie Madoff to the mortgage industry, con artists have always operated by persuading naïve investors to give their trust. On the other hand, relationships often fail because one or both parties are afraid to give trust.

FORTUNE -- The days of over-sized jeans sagging from the derrieres of men everywhere are no more. Skinny jeans, tailored pants, and fitted oxfords are de rigeur, leaving little room for excess fabric in the undergarment department. Boxers or briefs used to be the only question men needed to ask themselves, but today, the options have grown. Five years ago, Tom Patterson was a medical-device sales rep by day and an avid-viewer of CNBC's The Big Idea with Donny Deutsch by night. "All of the featured products or services ... were created out of personal frustration," recalls Patterson. "I found myself constantly looking around, asking, 'What can I make better?'" During the financial crisis, Patterson was laid off from a sales job he held for six years. During his down time, he realized that one of the biggest fashion annoyances he faced while he was working was a fabric gut -- that baggy bump just above the belt line caused by a loose-fitting undershirt.