Triumphs are fleeting in China’s fast-changing economy. Earlier this month Colin Huang, the founder of Pinduoduo, a Chinese e-commerce darling, became the country’s richest man. The company, founded in 2015, rose to success by offering a gamified shopping experience where users can buy in groups to secure lower prices. Today it is China’s third-largest e-commerce firm by sales, behind only JD.com and Alibaba. More
When Southwest Airlines launched in 1971, flying three Boeing 737 jets between Dallas, Houston and San Antonio, few imagined the impact its business model would have on the aviation industry in America and beyond. In the decades that followed, low-cost carriers (LCCs) pummelled incumbents by offering cheap, no-frills fares to keep costs down and planes full, flying point-to-point rather than connecting through big hubs. More
Parked outside the front doors of a handsome 1920s brick building in a Parisian suburb is a bright yellow Renault 5, a new electric vehicle (ev) unveiled by the French carmaker in February. It is permitted this enviable spot because it belongs to Luca de Meo, the boss of the company, whose top brass occupy the building. Mr de Meo has brought a renewed confidence to Renault since taking over as its chief executive four years ago. He has turned the business around—and readied it to take on the Chinese carmakers that are looking to expand in the European market. More
The one thing that managers reliably lack is time. They will often be doing their existing jobs as well as supervising others. They have bureaucracies to navigate—expenses to authorise, hiring requests to make—and mini-crises to solve. It is all too easy for the weeks to whizz past; suddenly it is September and the northern-hemisphere nights are drawing in again. But it is possible for even harried managers to ask themselves questions that force useful moments of reflection. For example: More
IMAGINE A beach where for decades people have enjoyed sunbathing in the buff. Suddenly one of the world’s biggest corporations takes it over and invites anyone in, declaring that thongs and mankinis are the new nudity. The naturists object, but sun-worshippers flock in anyway. That, by and large, is the situation in the world’s open-source community, where bare-it-all purists are confronting Meta, the social-media giant controlled by a mankini-clad Mark Zuckerberg. More
Soon after his private jet touched down on August 24th at Le Bourget airport, on the outskirts of Paris, Pavel Durov was arrested by French police. A statement later released by prosecutors said that the 39-year-old billionaire had been detained as part of an investigation into Telegram, the social-media app of which he is the founder and chief executive. French judges have until August 28th to decide whether to pursue charges or release him. More
IF today’s stockmarkets have their version of the great wildebeest migration, it is the stampede of the Nvidia bulls. Wall Street is no Serengeti, and Jim Cramer’s high-pitched narration no match for the dulcet tones of Sir David Attenborough. But in other respects investors’ headlong rush into the American chipmaker’s shares has been every bit as enthralling a spectacle. More
Close to the Czech border, south of Dresden in the German state of Saxony, lies Glashütte, a picturesque town of 6,700 inhabitants. As the German Watch Museum, its main visitor attraction, suggests, the town is the centre of the country’s high-end watchmaking industry. In 1845, after years of apprenticeship with makers of fine watches in France and Switzerland, Ferdinand Adolph Lange opened a workshop in Glashütte with a loan from the Saxon authorities, founding what would go on to become A. Lange & Söhne, one of the world’s priciest watch brands. Today the firm, now owned by Richemont, a Swiss luxury giant, is one of the nine high-end horologists that manufacture watches in the town. More
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