February 2021

"SUCCESS BREEDS complacency. Complacency breeds failure. Only the paranoid survive." So said Andy Grove, the Hungarian emigré who helped build Intel from a scrappy startup in the 1960s into the firm that did more than perhaps any other to put...

For decades America’s labour movement has been losing steam. Trade unions represent only 7% of private-sector workers. No significant piece of pro-union legislation has passed in recent years. Right-to-work laws, which undermine the clout of organised labour, have spread to 27...

The hindu pantheon of gods has no shortage of deities with multiple arms. India’s government, with a hand in industries from energy and steel to finance and travel, would fit right in. A long infatuation with central planning transformed state-run business...

Seldom has a tech giant excoriated another as Apple did Facebook. “What are the consequences of prioritising conspiracy theories and violent incitement simply because of their high rates of engagement?” asked Apple’s boss, Tim Cook, in a speech on January...

How best should managers be incentivised? In the biblical parable of the talents, a master divides his property among three servants before going away. Two put his money to work and double its value; the third buries it in the...

“WE AIM to be the most customer-obsessed company in the world,” declares the opening line in the 700-page prospectus from Kuaishou, a Chinese video app. The firm, launched a decade ago by a former software engineer at Google and another...

Few life stories are as soap-operatic as Lai Xiaomin’s. The fallen state financier dallied with more than 100 mistresses, according to Chinese media. He was subsequently caught with three tonnes of cash in one of his dozens of homes. The...