Philippa Kaur

Motivational quotes. Videos of Steve Jobs saying absolutely anything. Clips of a baby elephant being rescued from a river. You do not have to scroll for long on LinkedIn, a networking site ostensibly for people at work, to find “inspirational” content. There may be people who need only to read “We cannot become what we want by remaining what we are” written in a nice font to feel amped up on a Monday morning. But there will be just as many who want to snigger or vomit. For bosses interested in how to motivate the people around them, there are better options than searching for quotes by Paulo Coelho. More

For MORE than two years most Russian businesses carried on unscathed by the war in Ukraine. A surge in defence spending and subsidised loans for consumers and firms propped up spending at home, even as sanctions curtailed access to foreign markets and inflation jumped. Western companies from Volkswagen, a German carmaker, to Shell, a Dutch oil giant, sold their Russian operations to local enterprises. After an initial tumble, the MOEX, an index of Russian stocks, steadily recovered (see chart). More

In the weeks after Donald Trump’s sweeping election victory, American companies sought to reassure investors that they were amply prepared for a new round of tariffs. Some, like Stanley Black & Decker, a toolmaker, highlighted efforts to shift their supply chains away from China. Others, like Lowe’s, a home-improvement retailer, pointed to processes they have put in place to deal with tariffs after Mr Trump’s first term, during which levies were imposed on about $380bn-worth of imports ranging from steel and aluminium to washing machines, mostly from China. More

When Pat GELSINGER took over as Intel’s chief executive in 2021 he seemed to possess the same impatient mindset as his mentor, Andy Grove, a former boss of the chipmaker famed for declaring that “Only the paranoid survive”. Barely a month into the job Mr Gelsinger unveiled a plan to restructure the business and advance through five generations of production technology within four years. Nearly four years on, however, it is Intel’s investors who have grown impatient. On December 2nd Intel announced that Mr Gelsinger would be retiring. That his departure is effective immediately, with a permanent successor yet to be appointed, suggests it was hardly voluntary. It leaves both Intel and the incoming Trump administration in an awkward spot. More

Car dashboards have an array of indicators that illuminate to warn of trouble. If the boardrooms of Europe’s carmakers had similar systems they would be lit up like a Christmas market. Volkswagen (VW), the largest of the lot by sales, is bracing for strikes beginning on December 1st in response to its plan to close three factories in Germany and cut wages. Northvolt, a once-promising Swedish battery startup in which VW and BMW invested, has collapsed into bankruptcy. Meanwhile, across the Atlantic, Donald Trump is threatening to upend supply chains by imposing a 25% tariff on imports from Mexico and Canada. More

In Victorian London, among the factories and warehouses of the city’s East End, Alexander Parkes developed the world’s first plastic (he inventively called it Parkesine). Notpla, a startup now based in the same part of the city, wants to follow in his footsteps. Unlike Parkesine, however, its material is not made to last. And instead of fossil fuels, it is made from seaweed. At Emirates Stadium, not far away, football fans already gorge on hot dogs served on trays that use the material, which decomposes naturally in just six weeks. More

Interrogate the internet about the most ridiculous rules people have experienced at work, and the stories roll in. The lab assistant instructed to label the expiry dates on all chemical samples, who was reprimanded for not writing when a bottle of sand would go off (to comply, they put in a date 65m years hence). The accounting firm where only partners were allowed to have plants over a certain height. The company where employees were required to submit requests to maintenance if they wanted the height of their office chairs to be adjusted. The baroque limitations on how often people are allowed to go to the lavatory. More

FEW European startups have attracted as much attention—and none as much capital—as Northvolt. On November 21st the Swedish maker of batteries for electric vehicles (EVs), and a would-be European champion, went bankrupt, having raised $15bn from governments and investors. Its boss, Peter Carlsson, resigned shortly after. More