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Not long ago, big tech was splurging on flashy office space to woo talent. Money sloshed around and a hiring boom was under way. Even as the pandemic forced programmers and software engineers to work remotely, tech giants splashed out on lavish workplaces. Google has been beavering away on a sprawling complex in London with a 25-metre swimming pool and a rooftop running track, due to open in 2024, while shelling out $1bn on another building in the city. Amazon said it would add a dog-day-care facility and hiking trail at its new complex in Arlington, Virginia. In the two years to March, other tech companies across America and Canada added enough office space to fill the Empire State Building more than 20 times over. As recession looms and businesses tighten their belts, surplus office space presents an easy target. This is especially true in tech, which is sacking workers en masse. Technology firms around the world have announced 150,000 job cuts so far this year, according to Layoffs.fyi, a jobs-data website. On December 13th Amazon delayed the start-dates for graduates who were meant to begin work in May to the end of 2023. Bad news for tech workers is also bad news for tech landlords.Meta (which is laying off 13% of its workforce) has abandoned plans to expand in New York. So has Amazon, which has also paused construction on six new buildings in Tennessee and Washington state. Snap, which has sacked a fifth of its workers, has permanently shut its office in San Francisco. Twitter has reportedly stopped paying rent. Netflix, Lyft and Salesforce, among other downsizers, are trying to sublet unneeded property. It all adds up to a lot of empty desks. Since early 2020 office space available to sublet across America’s top 30 tech markets has more than doubled (see chart) to a record 142m square feet (13m square metres).This puts an end to a decade-long office expansion. Since 2010 tech firms have acquired more space than any other industry, accounting for 17.5% of leasing activity in America. In 2021 a fifth of all leased office space was taken up by tech companies. Big tech signed more than a third of the largest leases by floor space last year. And landlords have more to worry about more than nervy tech darlings pulling back. The spillover from a shrinking tech sector will hit the broader economy, More

It was called the tweetstorm that saved Christmas. In October 2021 scores of freighters idled at anchor off the west coast of America unable to deliver imports to docks already choc-a-bloc with containers. To find out what was wrong Ryan Petersen, founder of Flexport, a logistics firm, took a boat tour of America’s biggest port complex. He concluded that the adjacent ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach were at a standstill largely because of a shortage of space, which meant empty containers could not be removed from the dock. “OVERWHELM THE BOTTLENECK!” he tweeted. The thread went viral. Politicians were stung into action. Long Beach relaxed restrictions on how high containers could be stacked. Goods moved again. Santa Claus heaved a sigh of relief. Listen to this story. Enjoy more audio and podcasts on More

This is the digital age, and the advice to executives is clear. Managers need to have a digital mindset; the organisations they run must embrace digital transformation. If you don’t know what ChatGPT is, think of Dan Brown when you hear the word “code” or dislike the idea of working with a cobot, enjoy your retirement. So what present should you be getting the executive in your life this festive season? Answer: anything made of paper. Even if the recipient of your gift never uses it, it can still serve as a useful reminder of where the digital world’s limitations lie. Listen to this story. Enjoy more audio and podcasts on More

When theKaufhaus des Westens (KaDeWe), a temple of consumption in West Berlin, celebrated its 115th birthday last month with a glitzy champagne party for 2,000, the mood was sparkling. A row of brightly lit Christmas trees greeted partygoers when they entered the ground floor of the grand old lady of Berlin’s department stores, where Chanel, Dior, Gucci, Tiffany’s and other luxury brands vie for their attention. As guests danced through the night, the war in Ukraine, sky-high inflation and other worries seemed far away. Listen to this story. Enjoy more audio and podcasts on More

With no end to the tech downturn in sight, the industry’s titans are eyeing new markets. The bigger, the better: in the past year the combined revenue of Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft and Meta reached $1.5trn, so further growth that moves the needle can only come from a giant business. One candidate is finance. What is more, that industry generates petabytes of data, the crunching of which is a core competency of tech firms. And it is dominated by stuffy, old institutions. For a tech CEO, it looks ripe for disruption. Listen to this story. Enjoy more audio and podcasts on More

Every indian business dreads waking up to a bill from the state. So too the Taj Mahal Palace. The Mumbai Port Trust, owner of the land upon which the landmark hotel sits, is demanding $92m in retrospective rent for the years 2012-22. The Taj, which is owned by Tata Group, a conglomerate, has called the demand “exorbitant and untenable” in a petition to the Bombay High Court. The claim’s size and the Taj’s prominence make the claim unique. But many tenants get similar treatment. As a result, Mumbai’s old business district, once home to many global firms, has slid into disrepair. Listen to this story. Enjoy more audio and podcasts on More

Disney’s “Avatar: The Way of Water,” which clocks in at over three hours long, is a stunning piece of blockbuster cinema, according to critics.
Critics were adamant that audiences should watch James Cameron’s “The Way of Water” on the biggest screen possible.
The film’s long runtime was a fault point for many, who found that Cameron’s script was too thin to justify three hours in a theater.

Avatar: The Way of Water
Courtesy: Disney Co. 

James Cameron’s long-awaited sequel to 2009’s “Avatar” arrives in theaters this weekend and it has critics captivated and exasperated.
Disney’s “Avatar: The Way of Water,” which clocks in at over three hours long, is being hailed as a stunning piece of cinema, generating a “Fresh” rating on Rotten Tomatoes. But, its narrative is thin and, like the original, doesn’t hold up against Cameron’s lofty technical ambitions, several critics said.

“The Way of Water” follows Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) and Neytiri (Zoe Saldana) who are now the parents of four Na’vi children. The family is driven from their forest home when humans return to re-colonize parts of Pandora.
Critics are adamant that audiences should watch “The Way of Water” on the biggest screen possible, lauding the film for its you-won’t-believe-this-is-computer-generated visuals and bombastic sound design.
But the film’s long runtime was a fault point for many, who found that Cameron’s script was too thin to justify three hours in a theater.
Here’s what critics thought of “Avatar: The Way of Water” before its Friday release.

Eric Francisco, Inverse

“The sequel to Cameron’s 2009 box office hit, ‘Avatar: The Way of Water,’ is simply bigger and better than its predecessor in every regard,” wrote reviewer Eric Francisco.

“It demands the biggest screen you can find so that its most potent elements — from its impossible scale and skillful spectacle, to its more complete range of emotions and thematic romanticism — can be completely absorbed,” he said.
Francisco noted that there are some hiccups in the film’s plot and in “Cameron’s own inability to resist” teasing elements of the next installment in the franchise. Apparently, there are several unresolved narratives that audiences will have to wait to see in future Avatar movies.
“As is the case with most of Cameron’s films, what elevates his work is the bravado of his execution, allowing magnificent beasts and scenery prime real estate on the screen, while large-scale battles have tight spatial and rhythmic coherence,” he wrote. “Both never fail to inspire awe. The bioluminescent creatures and caverns aren’t just a dazzling visual to distract us, they work in tandem with the storytelling to create a revelatory experience.”
Read the full review from Inverse.

Avatar: The Way of Water
Courtesy: Disney Co. 

Charlotte O’Sullivan, Evening Standard

“‘Avatar 2’ is definitely a showcase for visual effects company Weta FX (the faces of Pandora’s Na’vi heroes have become even more expressive),” wrote Charlotte O’Sullivan in her review.
“But I’ve never thought Cameron was God’s gift to cinema,” she added. “For most of ‘Titanic”s running time my gut feeling was, ‘Just sink already’ and some of the 68-year-old director’s worst tendencies are on display in ‘Avatar 2’: over-familiar plot beats, overwrought score and endless shots of the Na’vi’s obscenely willowy, coyly sexualized bodies.”
Despite this, “The Way of Water” is “breathtaking,” O’Sullivan wrote, noting that after leaving the theater she “felt like I’d been through something special.”
Like many, O’Sullivan indicated that the story of “The Way of Water” leaves much to be desired.
“Plot-wise, this movie is treading water,” she wrote. “But that’s fine, because the water’s lovely.”
Read the full review from Evening Standard.

Wenlei Ma, News.com.au

Those that found themselves returning to the theater again and again to see “Avatar” on the big screen a decade ago, “The Way of Water” is “vivid and enthralling.”
For those that found the first film overly long and thin on story, “The Way of Water” won’t do much to endear you to the world of Pandora.
“This sequel will repeat your experience of the first,” wrote Wenlei Ma in her review of the film for News.com.au.

Avatar: The Way of Water
Courtesy: Disney Co.

Ma did note that “The Way of Water” is “jaw-droppingly beautiful,” likening it to watching a David Attenborough documentary rather than a CGI feature. However, she says the visuals aren’t enough to outweigh the lackluster story.
“The story is a simple chase plot, merely a template to do what Cameron seems more intent on achieving, which is seeing just how far he can push the technological and visual aspects of filmmaking,” she wrote.
“The 3D visuals are undoubtedly cool, but it shouldn’t be the only reason to see this film,” she added. “It’s all sheen and spectacle, so for a movie about the emotional depths between the Na’vi and their environment, it’s frustratingly all surface.”
Read the full review from News.com.au.

Justin Chang, Los Angeles Times

“In ‘Avatar: The Way of Water,’ the director James Cameron pulls you down so deep, and sets you so gently adrift, that at times you don’t feel like you’re watching a movie so much as floating in one,” wrote reviewer Justin Chang.
“Much as you might long for Cameron to keep us down there — to give us, in effect, the most expensive and elaborate underwater hangout movie ever made — he can’t or won’t sustain all this dreamy Jacques-Cousteau-on-mushrooms wonderment for three-plus hours,” he wrote. “He’s James Cameron, after all, and he has a stirringly old-fashioned story to tell, crap dialogue to dispense and, in time, a hell of an action movie to unleash, complete with fiery shipwrecks, deadly arrows and a whale-sized, tortoise-skinned creature known as a Tulkun.”
Chang said its “marvelous” to have Cameron’s presence back on the big screen. He notes the famed director has long been questioned for his choices in film projects — people thought he was crazy to produce “Titanic” — but “his latest and most ambitious picture will stun most of his naysayers into silence.”
Read the full review from Los Angeles Times.

Avatar: The Way of Water
Courtesy Disney Co.

Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle

Not everyone was enamored by Cameron’s attention to detail and expansive lore building.
“‘Avatar: The Way of Water’ is a one-hour story rattling around in a 192-minute bag,” wrote Mick LaSalle in his review of the film. “There was potential here for something lovely, a sweet and moving environmental parable clocking in at 90 minutes, tops.”
“But, no, James Cameron can’t do anything so modest,” he wrote. 
LaSalle said “The Way of Water” feels bloated with too many ideas competing for space within its already lofty three-hour run time.
“‘The Way of Water’ starts where the first left off and stops with the promise of sequels,” he wrote. “Long, long sequels. That’s not a promise. It’s a threat.”
Read the full review from the San Francisco Chronicle.

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Police officers step into the vandalized gateway to Sri Lanka’s presidential palace in July. The country has been hit hard by an economic crisis.
Abhishek Chinnappa | Getty Images News | Getty Images

Curtis S. Chin, a former U.S. ambassador to the Asian Development Bank, is managing director of advisory firm RiverPeak Group. Jose B. Collazo is an analyst focusing on the Indo-Pacific region. Follow them on Twitter at @CurtisSChin and @JoseBCollazo.
As the new year approaches, we turn again to our annual look at Asia’s winners and losers. Government and business leaders in every major economy — China now included — may well hope 2023 is the year when draconian pandemic-related lockdowns become a matter of history.

In our 2021 annual review, we awarded “worst year in Asia” to Afghan women and girls — a consequence of the U.S. and its allies’ chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan and the return of Taliban rule. “Best year” went to Asia’s Cold War warriors, as social media, “wolf warriors” and politicians helped spark a return to Cold War rhetoric amid worsening U.S.-China relations.
Now, with hopes that Covid is in retreat and that inflation will moderate in the year ahead, we take a last look at who had it good and who had it bad in 2022.

Best Year: Southeast Asia’s comeback kids — Marcos and Anwar

Perseverance proved a winner in 2022 as the year ended with Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. of the Philippines and Anwar Ibrahim of Malaysia becoming leaders of their respective countries. One salvaged a family legacy, the other moved from prison to power — storylines befitting a Netflix series.
In the Philippines, Marcos — the namesake son of his authoritarian father — won a landslide election in May for president, despite what detractors see as a family legacy of corruption and impunity. More than 35 years ago, in February 1986, the senior Marcos and his wife Imelda fled to Hawaii in exile, driven out by a People Power Revolution and a loss of U.S. support.

And in Malaysia, Anwar finally proved a winner in November, shedding the long-held descriptor of “prime-minister-in-waiting” to become his nation’s 10th prime minister. That followed decades marked by smear campaigns, imprisonment and backroom intrigue as the onetime deputy prime minister challenged vested interests with his vows to combat corruption.

The two now face the challenge of governing and moving their respective countries forward. Stay tuned for the next episode.

Good Year: Taiwan’s semiconductor chipmakers 

In a year that saw tensions between the U.S and China reach a feverish peak when U.S. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi visited Taipei, the island’s sophisticated semiconductor industry ends the year in a good position. Taiwan’s chipmakers are more essential than ever.  
Semiconductor chips lie at the heart of everything from computers to cars to smartphones. Underscoring the Taiwanese tech industry’s critical role, a Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA)/Boston Consulting Group 2021 study found that 92% of the world’s most advanced semiconductor manufacturing capacity is located in Taiwan. The other 8% was in South Korea. 

TSMC headquarters in Hsinchu, Taiwan. The semiconductor manufacturer’s products lie at the heart of everything from automobiles to smartphones.
Bloomberg | Bloomberg | Getty Images

A rare bipartisan U.S. Congress has taken notice, passing in July 2022 the CHIPS and Science Act, which allocates $52 billion in federal funding to spur further domestic production of semiconductor chips. In December, the world’s dominant chipmaker, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), announced plans for a second semiconductor chip plant in Arizona, raising to $40 billion what is already one of the largest foreign investments in U.S. history. 
With numbers like those, Taiwan’s semiconductor industry ends the year on the move, still building ties and winning growing support from business and government in the United States and elsewhere.

Mixed Year: Asia’s ‘love’ for crypto

As in much of the world, investors in Asia — once bedazzled if not bewitched by the crypto industry — end the year in a mixed mood. Industry meltdowns have left many, including in government, wondering if the message of caveat emptor — buyer beware — is sufficient, and new regulations loom. 
The crypto exchange FTX’s billions-dollar implosion set off alarm bells throughout the region. Singapore’s Temasek Holdings, which has written off its entire $275 million investment in the now-collapsed FTX cryptocurrency business, has suffered “reputational damage,” Deputy Prime Minister Lawrence Wong said.

FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried is led by officers of the Royal Bahamas Police force following his arrest.
Mario Duncanson | Afp | Getty Images

Bad Year: Sri Lanka, the (one-time) pearl of South Asia 

Even amid food insecurity and economic worries across much of Asia, the images of angry citizens storming the official residence of Sri Lanka’s President Gotabaya Rajapaksa and the Presidential Secretariat stand out in what was most decidedly a bad year for this one-time “pearl of South Asia.”
Sri Lanka continues to face a multidimensional crisis. A broken economy, depleted foreign currency reserves, high inflation — at one point reaching more than 70% — and power, fuel and food shortages made worse by the impact of the war in Ukraine, a growing “brain drain” and meager tourism numbers characterize this south Asian nation today.

Negotiations for an IMF deal remain complicated by large amounts of Sri Lankan debt held by China, India and Japan.

By September, nearly 200,000 Sri Lankans had left the island nation, and thousands of would-be emigrants were planning to do the same in search of a brighter future elsewhere. 
An IMF deal to restructure Sri Lanka’s debt could provide much needed cash and economic stability, but negotiations remain complicated by large amounts of Sri Lankan debt held by China, India and Japan.

Worst year: China’s beleaguered, locked-down citizens

While China has taken pride in an extraordinarily low number of (officially reported) Covid-related deaths, the nation has also become a showcase for the negative consequences of efforts to contain the virus. In what should have been a good year for Chinese President Xi Jinping, he has seen the year close with a wave of Chinese discontent. 
By year-end, anti-lockdown protests were reported in numerous cities, including at the world’s largest iPhone assembly factory in Zhengzhou, as China’s zero-Covid policy took its toll on the economy and everyday people’s mental health.

“We want freedom, not Covid tests,” became a common chant of some protesters, according to Reuters, as individuals “pushed the boundaries by speaking for change in a country where space for dissent has narrowed dramatically.”
The spark that set off the rare protests was news of the deaths of 10 people, including several children, in an apartment building fire in Urumqi in China’s Xinjiang province — in an area that had been locked down for several months. A storyline on social media that resonated across the country focused on the role that Covid controls might have played in those deaths.
Chinese citizens can take heart that those protests may well have had an impact. The Chinese government has begun to relax zero-Covid restrictions. Still, the nation continues to lag the world in opening and moving forward, and worries continue about the nation’s rate of vaccination among the elderly.
And so, even as hope has returned for a better year ahead, China’s beleaguered, locked-down citizens take the dubious honors of worst year in Asia 2022.

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