Philippa Kaur

One satisfaction of buying a new car is the distinctive aroma within. The smell that emanates from the Chinese electric vehicles (evs) that are increasingly common on Europe’s roads is, for the European Commission, that of a rat. On June 12th, after an eight-month probe, the EU’s executive arm accused China of unfairly subsidising its industry with the likes of tax breaks and cheap loans. It fears that cut-price imports pose a “clearly foreseeable and imminent injury” to European carmakers. Provisional tariffs of between 26% and 48%, compared with 10% for other imported cars, will be imposed from July on Chinese evs. The precise duty will depend on each firm’s willingness to assist the investigation.In the short term, it is hard to sniff out a winner. Car buyers hoping to inhale the intoxicating new-car odour will certainly suffer if the prices of imported cars rise and competitive pressures on European firms ease. But Europe’s carmakers are not taking a victory lap, either. They did not ask for the probe, which was launched under pressure from France’s government. German companies such as Volkswagen and BMW, which make lots of cars in China and export plenty there, have been particularly vocal opponents. Now they fear retaliation from Beijing, which looks inevitable. More

Tim Cook has an air of bashful reverence. In his 13 years at the helm of Apple he has created more value than just about any CEO in history, as the tech behemoth’s market capitalisation has climbed from less than $400bn to almost $3trn. But he still acts as if he were there thanks to the grace of Steve Jobs, or the skill of his colleagues, or divine providence. It was in character, then, that when he took to the stage at the iPhone-maker’s annual developers’ gathering on June 10th, he first greeted the cheering throng by clasping his hands together, as if in prayer. He probably would not admit this, but there was plenty to pray for.Apple is suffering one of its periodic bouts of investor angst. Call it the curse of the missing mojo. In the past 18 months Wall Street has convinced itself—as it has a few times since Jobs died in 2011—that the creative spark bequeathed by Apple’s Promethean co-founder has finally sputtered out. Behind that is a real problem: sales of the iPhone, which account for half of Apple’s revenues, are slowing. But there is a perception problem, too. Apple’s aloof response to the euphoria over generative artificial intelligence (AI) has cost it its crown as the world’s most valuable company, which it lost to its one-time nemesis, Microsoft. To make matters worse, the market value of Nvidia, maker of chips that power generative-AI tools, this month briefly overtook that of Apple. Its boss, Jensen Huang, is treated like the second coming of Jobs. More

Pity OpenAI’s HR department. Since the start of the year the maker of ChatGPT, the hit artificial-intelligence (AI) chatbot, has lost about a dozen top researchers. The biggest name was Ilya Sutskever, a co-founder responsible for many of the startup’s big breakthroughs, who announced his resignation on May 14th. He did not give a reason, though many suspect that it is linked to his attempt to oust Sam Altman, the firm’s boss, last December. Whatever the motivation, the exodus is not unusual at OpenAI. According to one estimate, of the 100-odd AI experts the firm has hired since 2016, about half have left.That reflects not Mr Altman’s leadership but a broader trend in the technology industry, one that OpenAI itself precipitated. Since the launch of ChatGPT in November 2022, the market for AI labour has been transformed. Zeki Research, a market-intelligence firm, reckons that around 20,000 companies in the West are hiring AI experts. Rapid advances in machine learning and the potential for a “platform shift”—tech-speak for the creation of an all-new layer of technology—has changed the types of skills employers are demanding and the places where those who possess them are going. The result is a market where AI talent, previously hoarded at tech giants, is becoming more distributed. More

America is not just the land of red-blooded capitalism. It has an esoteric tradition of capitalist altruism, too. Take Trader Joe’s, an own-label grocery chain like M&S in Britain. It somehow retains a local-community feel, like an indoor farmers’ market with good prices and wonderful staff, despite having 549 stores. Whole Foods Market, a 530-store Mecca for well-heeled health nuts and epicureans, has a similar vibe. Or at least it did until 2017, when it was sold to Amazon for $13.7bn. Its co-founder, John Mackey, has recently published a book full of joie de vivre about his 42 years at its helm. “The Whole Story: Adventures in Love, Life and Capitalism” comes a few years after an even quirkier memoir by the founder of Trader Joe’s, the late Joe Coulombe. They are strikingly different characters who approached retailing in unusual ways. Each offers good lessons in entrepreneurship.Mr Mackey’s book starts with him as a college dropout having an LSD-fuelled epiphany: “I was IT. And it was me, and I was there. And it was ALL.” Don’t be put off. Whether or not would-be entrepreneurs should drop acid for inspiration, in his case it worked. The Texan’s quest for self-discovery leads to a new philosophy of natural-food retailing that conquers America. Coulombe’s book, “Becoming Trader Joe”, has no New Ageiness, even though his chain started in California in 1967. As a lesson in how to beat the big guys in business, it does exactly what it says on the tin. His first anecdote is about the merits of relabelling Peruvian tuna as pilchards to avoid import quotas and cut prices. More

Rare is the chief executive who extols the virtues of a lie-in. Tim Cook, boss of Apple, maker of the iPhone, wakes between 4am and 5am. So does Bob Iger, his counterpart at Disney, a media giant. According to one survey, two-thirds of the chief executives of large American companies are up by 6 o’clock; for average Americans the share is less than one in three. For those aspiring to corporate greatness, the message seems clear: you snooze, you lose.Your guest Bartleby harbours no such ambitions. But he has, in the past, experimented with early starts, and can confirm that their benefits go beyond the smug sense of satisfaction that comes from arriving at your desk before your editor. Inboxes can be cleared and tricky problems mulled over before the onslaught of emails and meetings begins, leaving you feeling well prepared for the day ahead. More

CHINA’S HUNGER for homemade chips is insatiable. In May it was revealed that the government had launched the third iteration of its “Big Fund”, an investment vehicle designed to shore up the domestic semiconductor industry. The $48bn cash infusion is aimed at expanding the manufacture of microprocessors. Its generosity roughly matches similar packages from America ($53bn) and the EU ($49bn), both of which are also trying to encourage the expansion of local chipmaking.Chinese chipmakers are in a tough spot. In October 2022 America’s government restricted the export to China of advanced chips and chipmaking gear made using American intellectual property—which is to say virtually all such devices. This makes it near-impossible for Chinese firms to produce leading-edge microprocessors, the kind whose transistors measure a few nanometres (billionths of a metre) across and which power the latest artificial-intelligence models. But it does not stop them cranking out less advanced chips, with transistor sizes measured in tens of nanometres, of the sort that are needed in everything from televisions and thermostats to refrigerators and cars. More

Chart: The EconomistHow much is Elon Musk, the mercurial multibillionaire, worth to Tesla, the carmaker he runs? In 2018 the company’s board put in place a plan to award Mr Musk shares over ten years worth $46bn, at their current price, provided the business cleared a series of hurdles. In January a Delaware judge struck down the package, calling it “unfathomable”, after a shareholder sued to have it rescinded. The company has asked its investors to reaffirm their support for the award ahead of an annual general meeting on June 13th. Mr Musk’s monster pay package is worth nearly 300 times what America’s best-paid chief executive, Hock Tan of Broadcom, a chipmaker, made last year. It is also equivalent to 8% of Tesla’s current market value—which is down by roughly a fifth over the past year.■ More

WESTERN CHAINS used to dominate casual dining and drinking in China. The arrival of a Kentucky Fried Chicken in a Chinese city was once regarded as a developmental milestone. Today China is home to 10,000 KFCs (whose owner, Yum China, was spun off from its American parent in 2016), more than twice the number in America. Starbucks has 7,000 coffee shops and McDonald’s boasts 6,000 burger joints. The foreigners’ cash and cachet made it hard for locals to compete.Now the tables are turning. Starbucks’s Chinese sales fell by 8% in the first quarter, year on year, and Yum China reported a drop of 3%. Yet even as they lose their appetite for foreign chains, Chinese consumers cannot get enough of domestic ones. Tastien, which fills hamburgers with local delicacies such as Peking duck or mapo tofu rather than beef, has opened 1,600 new shops in the past six months, bringing its total to 7,000. Wallace, another burger-flipper, now has more than 20,000. Cotti, a two-year-old coffee-shop chain, plans to have that many by the end of 2025, up from 6,000 last October. An older caffeine-pedlar, Luckin, opened 8,000 in 2023, doubling its network. Mixue hawks its bubble tea through 36,000 outlets. More