Mariners know that the sea can be harsh, unpredictable and sometimes destructive. After weathering a pandemic and attacks by Houthi rebels that all but closed the vital trade route through the Suez canal, container-shipping companies may have hoped for some calm before the next storm. Alas, Donald Trump’s ever-changing tariffs and his plans to impose exorbitant port fees on Chinese vessels have led to more choppy waters. More
Perhaps it is inevitable that Anthropic, an artificial-intelligence (AI) lab founded by do-gooders, attracts snark in Silicon Valley. The company, which puts its safety mission above making money, has an in-house philosopher and a chatbot with the Gallic-sounding name of Claude. Even so, the profile of some of those who have recently attacked Anthropic is striking. More
Airlines have long been champions of price discrimination. To fatten their notoriously slim profit margins, they have developed what are known as “fare fences”, based on factors such as whether or not a trip spans a weekend, to charge more to customers who are willing to pay higher prices, particularly business travellers. More
Ever since he co-founded Xiaomi in 2010, Lei Jun, the chief executive of the Chinese tech giant, has pulled off feat after feat of salesmanship. A decade ago he earned a Guinness World Record for selling 2.1m smartphones online in 24 hours. These days, though, he is not just flogging cheap phones. Last month Xiaomi sold more than 200,000 of its first electric SUV, the YU7, within three minutes of bringing it onto the market. More
AS A TEENAGER in Oregon, Jensen Huang was one mean ping-pong player. In 1978 his mentor, Lou Bochenski, described him in a letter to Sports Illustrated as “perhaps the most promising junior ever to play table tennis” in the American north-west. Had he been a bit older, who knows, he might well have joined Bochenski’s daughter, Judy, who toured China in 1971 as part of Richard Nixon’s “ping-pong diplomacy” initiative to improve relations between the capitalist and communist worlds. More
Not since the first world war, when America’s government nationalised the railroad system, has it made the kind of investment it announced on July 10th. For $400m, the Department of Defence acquired a 15% stake in MP Materials, making it the largest shareholder in the country’s sole producer of rare-earth metals. The money will allow the business, with operations including a mine in California and a factory in Texas, to dramatically increase production of the magnets needed for fighter jets, electric vehicles, smartphones and more. On July 15th Apple, the iPhone-maker, joined in with a $500m deal to buy magnets from the company and help build a rare-earth recycling facility. More
When Warren Buffett, a venerable investor, and 3G Capital, a private-equity firm, merged Kraft and Heinz in 2015 to create a packaged-food heavyweight, consumers’ appetite for its colourful condiments, sugary snacks and processed cheeses seemed insatiable. The deal now looks to have been a big fat flop. Kraft Heinz’s market value, at $32bn, is down by three-fifths since the tie-up. The company expects its operating profit to fall by 5-10% this year. It is now said to be exploring a break-up. More
The competition for the world’s best AI talent is frenzied. Mark Zuckerberg, the boss of Meta, has personally taken charge of efforts to recruit for a “superintelligence” lab. The sums on offer are eye-watering: a rumoured $200m-plus to prise away the head of Apple’s AI models. OpenAI executives are said to be “recalibrating” compensation in order to ward off Mr Zuckerberg. But hiring hotshots makes sense only if you believe that talent is portable, and that superstars will continue to shine in their new organisations. More
