Philippa Kaur

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

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

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

The convenience store, or konbini, is an institution of modern Japanese life. Open at all hours, it offers customers tasty food and household essentials, as well as the ability to pay bills and send parcels. The industry leader, 7-Eleven, perfected new products, such as takeaway onigiri, or rice balls, and eventually took over the American chain from which it sprang. But if Alimentation Couche-Tard (ACT), a Canadian retailer that operates the Circle K chain of shops, has its way, 7-Eleven will no longer be Japanese. More

Regular attendees at Burning Man, an annual week-long festival in the Nevada desert, normally scramble to buy tickets. This year they are scrambling to sell them. The gathering of hippies and billionaires, which begins on August 25th, has failed to sell out for the first time since 2010. Tickets with a face value of $575 are being flogged on the secondary market at less than half-price. More

TheoDORE Roosevelt’s bull terrier once chased the French ambassador up a tree. Commander, President Joe Biden’s German shepherd, had to be rusticated after repeatedly biting Secret Service officers. Sir Gavin Williamson, a British politician, refused to remove a tarantula he kept in a glass tank from the office. He defended the presence of Cronus by insisting the “clean, ruthless killer” was “part of the team”. More