European tech laws should tempt the next Silicon Valley to cross the Atlantic April 1, 2022 In the early years of the last century, Louis Brandeis of America’s Supreme Court believed that markets, without regulation, would destroy their most treasured characteristic, competition. It was Justice Brandeis, above all others, whose actions curtailed the oil industry’s “robber barons” and brought about the age of “antitrust”. Today, for the first time since, anti-monopolists [...]
Russians learn the only thing worse than social media is no social media March 18, 2022 This week, Instagram feeds in Russia went dark. With Facebook already blocked, Twitter access restricted and a threat of the same to Youtube, the Russian state is silencing fora of dissent. In this column, I have often criticised the social media giants. Their business models are built on their ability to surveil you. They have [...]
From Abramovich to the Saudis: Football clubs have become the laundry for muddy reputations March 4, 2022 In 2003, Roman Abramovich bought Chelsea Football Club. In the years thereafter, a perennial underachiever became one of the most successful clubs in English football, a five-times Premier League champion and twice winner of the Champions League, the pinnacle of European football. Today, they are the reigning European and world club champions. Results on the [...]
The spectre of entrenched inflation will soon hit loss-making start-ups hard February 18, 2022 Larry Summers was Treasury Secretary to Bill Clinton, Barack Obama’s Director of the National Economic Council, and President of Harvard University. When he offers an economic prediction, therefore, he is worth listening to. A recent one was sobering. Summers believes we are entering a period of “higher entrenched inflation”. Make no mistake: inflation is a [...]
New York Times’ pursuit of subscribers over profit buys into a Big Tech delusion February 4, 2022 Those five, elusive letters. Only when I have found them can my day begin. Alas, they may soon become more elusive still. This week, the New York Times bought Wordle for an undisclosed, seven-figure fee. Ominously, the “Gray Lady” has promised only that Wordle will “initially remain free”. The New York Times has been unusually [...]
The left’s polarising piety is its own worst enemy in the politics of climate January 21, 2022 Throughout much of the English speaking world, climate change is a politically polarising issue. In the United States, Canada and Australia, the left favours action while the right opposes it. How lucky we are that this is not the case in Britain. Here, more than a decade of Conservative government has seen the introduction of [...]
Even a well-told story won’t save Big Tech from the cold hard stare of global attention January 7, 2022 On December 30th, the historian Timothy Snyder published a review of unimprovable snideness in the New York Times. His victim was an American academic, Jonathan Gottschall, whose new book, “The Story Paradox”, examines the role of stories in society. In his book, Gottschall argues that the “science” of storytelling has been understudied and its power [...]
Elizabeth Holmes and the perils of the Silicon Valley culture of hubris December 17, 2021 First hubris, then nemesis. There are few stories more compelling. Icarus flies too close to the sun and falls to earth. Richard III, “determined to prove a villain” in Shakespeare’s telling, overthrows his brother, kills his nephews and dies on Bosworth Field. When Milton’s Satan rebels against God, even in failure he is unrepentant. No [...]
The public and private divide has shifted and Thatcherism won’t save us November 26, 2021 This, said Margaret Thatcher as she drew Friedrich Hayek’s The Constitution of Liberty from her bag and slammed it on the table, is what we believe. The “vegetables”, as Spitting Image so memorably characterised her cabinet, agreed. Thatcher knew what she believed and the business community knew it too. It was the clarity of her [...]
Mark Carney, Exxon Mobil and the parable of purpose and turning a profit November 12, 2021 Gfanz, the inelegant rendering of the even less memorable Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero, is Mark Carney’s climate change vehicle. Last week, the former Bank of England Governor declared that it had mobilised $130tn in pursuit of net zero. The figure is incredible. For context, it is more than six-times America’s GDP, and greater [...]
