Philippa Kaur

As alter egos go, Augustus Caesar is not a bad one for Mark Zuckerberg, pontifex maximus of Meta, owner of the Facebook family of apps. Both men started their march to power as teenagers. Both stopped at nothing to build empires—though unlike the impetuous Mr Zuckerberg, Augustus’s motto was “make haste slowly”. Both gave the illusion of sharing power (Augustus with the Senate, Mr Zuckerberg with shareholders) while wielding it almost absolutely. The Roman emperor is Mr Zuckerberg’s role model. In a recent podcast he used the 200-year era of stability ushered in by Augustus to illustrate why he is making Meta’s generative artificial-intelligence (AI) models available in a way that, with some poetic licence, he calls open source. More

“We will drill, baby, drill!” So thundered Donald Trump in his speech on July 19th at the Republican National Convention, where he accepted his party’s nomination as its presidential candidate. Encouraged by rapturous applause, he warmed to the theme, vowing to boost domestic production of fossil fuels to “levels that nobody’s ever seen before”, making America so “energy dominant” that it “will supply the rest of the world”. More

If autonomous cars are supposed to make life easy, then Apollo Go, the robotaxi unit of Baidu, a Chinese tech giant, still has work to do. When your correspondent tested its service in the city of Wuhan he had to find his way to a designated pick-up location and end his journey at an approved drop-off spot—more like taking a bus than a cab. More

CHINA IS, FAMOUSLY, the world’s factory and a giant market for the world’s companies. More unremarked is its growing role as the world’s research-and-development laboratory. Between 2012 and 2021 foreign firms increased their collective Chinese research personnel by a fifth, to 716,000. Their annual R&D spending in the country almost doubled, to 338bn yuan ($52bn). Add investments by local firms and China now matches Europe’s R&D tally (see chart). Only America splurges more.In 2022, despite harsh covid-19 lockdowns, 25 new foreign R&D centres opened in Shanghai. Last year, when overall foreign direct investments in China shrivelled by 80%, those in R&D rose by 4%. In the process, Western R&D centres in China have been re-engineered, from places to learn about the domestic market into hotbeds of innovation whose fruits can be found in products sold everywhere. More

In the 1990s Macy’s, a chain of department stores based in New York, began gobbling up rivals across America. By the late 2000s that strategy had turned it into the biggest fish in a steadily evaporating pond. Sales across American department stores fell from $232bn in 2000 to $133bn last year as consumers switched to buying their frocks and fridges online. Many of Macy’s rivals have collapsed along the way. Sears, once America’s largest retailer, went bankrupt in 2018. JCPenney followed in 2020, as revenues dried up amid lockdowns. Recent years have brought little relief. The surge in the cost of living has led shoppers to seek cheaper alternatives to department stores.The future of Macy’s has been in question since December, when Arkhouse Management and Brigade Capital Management, two buy-out firms, were reported to be circling the retailer. After their takeover offer valuing it at $5.8bn was rejected in January, the duo began to agitate for a shake-up of its board. Macy’s then agreed to talks on a sweetened proposal and handed two seats on its board to the interlopers. On July 15th, however, it called off discussions, blaming uncertainty over how the deal would be financed. Its share price plummeted by 12%, lowering its market value to $4.7bn. More

IN LATE 2022 Wiz, a cyber-security startup, boasted that it was “the fastest-growing software company ever”. A stretch, maybe, but not a big one. At that point, 18 months after it was founded, annualised sales hit $100m. By 2023 they were $350m. In May Wiz raised $1bn at a $12bn valuation. On July 14th it emerged that Alphabet, Google’s parent company, was in talks to acquire Wiz for $23bn. It would be the biggest purchase of a cyber-security firm in history and Alphabet’s biggest takeover ever (see chart 1). More

Deciding to CAlL it quits is a relatively simple judgment early on in a career. If you find the prospect of going to work on Monday morning more depressing than a Lars von Trier film, it is time to leave. If you have nothing left to learn in your current organisation, you should probably grab more stimulating opportunities elsewhere. But knowing when to quit is less easy when you are in a role that already confers lots of status, novelty and purpose. And moving on is particularly difficult when it might be the last big job you have.What is true of American presidents is also true of chief executives. Bob Iger has made not leaving Disney into an art form. The surest way to know you will not succeed Jamie Dimon at JPMorgan Chase is to be anointed his successor. Both bosses are stars, and their firms have reasons to hang on to them. The same cannot be said of Dave Calhoun, Boeing’s CEO, who will lead the company until the end of the year despite the enormous reputational damage it has sustained on his watch. (Mr Calhoun was supposed to have departed years ago; instead the firm raised the mandatory retirement age to allow him to stay.) More

PITY EUROPE’S luxury giants. On July 15th Swatch Group, a Swiss watchmaker, said its revenues and operating profit ticked down in the six months to June, by 14% and 70% year on year, respectively. The next day Hugo Boss, a German fashion house, cut its earnings forecast for 2024 and Richemont, another Swiss group, reported that its quarterly sales in China, which accounts for a quarter of the $1.6trn annual global luxury market, plunged by 27% compared with last year. All eyes are now on the world’s luxury colossus, LVMH, which will report results on July 23rd. More