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

Silicon Valley and the European Commission, the EU’s executive arm, have a strained relationship. Regulators in Brussels blame American tech giants for everything from the struggles of European startups to teenage depression. American tech firms whinge that they are targeted by jealous Europeans. Now, after years of acrimony, a détente is possible. On December 1st a new commission took office. More

“We’ve got your back,” Australia’s prime minister, Anthony Albanese, told parents on November 29th, a day after pushing through some of the world’s strictest limits on screentime. One year from now, under-16s will be banned from using social media, in a move intended to protect them from harm. Teenagers groaned. Parents discreetly high-fived. Policymakers around the world took notes. 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

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

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