“Corporate boards have deduced that greater bulk is worth buying. Is it?” The FT View on record-breaking ‘megadeals’ - what should bidders learn from the last record year, 2015, which brought us, among others, M&A dud Kraft Heinz? as.ft.com/r/53c839cd-8...
“By delegating part of his role to a machine, Mark Zuckerberg raises the question of what CEOs actually do, and how much of it is time well spent.”
My FT column on Meta building an AI Zuckerberg — the reverse of “management by walking around”:
as.ft.com/r/639f232a-f...
Absolutely!
#BookSky
“My door is always open”
as.ft.com/r/a03d7b45-0... Meta builds AI version of Mark Zuckerberg to interact with staff
Shoplifting “has become the latest something-must-be-done crime. But what?” The FT View on how to deal with the unsettling rise in retail theft as.ft.com/r/af14ec78-7...
For more about this year’s @financialtimes.com and Standard Chartered Business Book of the Year Award businessbook.live.ft.com
How and why did business books break out of their hard covers? Here’s my analysis of the weird, AI-fuelled future of the book, as we launch this year’s FT Business Book of the Year Award with new partner Standard Chartered as.ft.com/r/57cd8af8-c... #BBYA26
‘Management consultants often ask clients: “What does success look like?” As war in the Middle East approaches its third week, companies are having to consider the opposite question: “What does failure look like?”’ - the FT View on how war is reshaping business as.ft.com/r/56ba82e3-d...
Redzepi's resignation reminded me just how long the allegations have been out there. I wrote about Noma and the lessons for managers in 2015 when Redzepi was asking whether there was "still room for guys like me" in the industry as.ft.com/r/c5630b84-3...
Travel is “getting harder for the wrong people”, but “for the right people, I don’t see any impact [on] the mood” - Dubai-based Zubin Karkaria, CEO of VFS, the world’s largest visa processor, unbowed by geopolitical turmoil. Interview by me and @stephistacey.ft.com as.ft.com/r/8116e003-b...
This is a little premature, but I'm delighted to say my book about shorthand, one of the world's oldest workplace technologies, is now available for pre-order ahead of November publication by Profile Books www.amazon.co.uk/Take-Note-Ni... #TakeNote #shorthand
Reminds me of the research showing that beyond 40 hours a week, performance improves only slightly and above 65 hours, it drops sharply as.ft.com/r/a0dbad69-e...
Once in a while, along comes a news story that sums up the mad times we live in as.ft.com/r/c38cc40a-1...
It’s Charles Dickens’ birthday, and he would be flabbergasted to see how civilisation as he thought of it is being gleefully dismantled by venal hypocrites, sinister buffoons and raving narcissistic autocrats whom he would have rejected as villains too grotesque even for his novels.
Colleague and fellow Davos-goer @pilitaclark.bsky.social has ideated around her North Star, operationalised her five days at the Alpine summit and shared some key takeaways that should be top of mind as you follow your red thread through 2026 as.ft.com/r/d6606d08-1...
“Less an algorithmic perversion than a mirror to our already pervasive ego-massaging culture” - @emmavj.bsky.social on the sycophantic omnipresence of AI in our work lives as.ft.com/r/4177d473-5...
Pray you once more,
Is not your father grown incapable
Of reasonable affairs? Is he not stupid
With age and alt’ring rheums? Can he speak? Hear?
Know man from man? Dispute his own estate?
Lies he not bed-rid? And again does nothing
But what he did being childish?
A warm welcome to Standard Chartered, new partner for the FT Business Book of the Year Award #BBYA26 #BusinessBooks as.ft.com/r/9db1f3fa-a...
Thanks, Andy - and happy new year
“Culture remains. Because even if you destroy the books, that culture is within people, their minds, in everything” - an uplifting tale for this ominous new year #booksky as.ft.com/r/5ebe84b7-d...
In praise of boredom - the FT View about how to cultivate the right type of tedium over the festive period as.ft.com/r/be5e9690-4...
Nvidia’s Jensen Huang is “totally driven by negative emotion in a way that I have never seen in a CEO before” - my interview with FT/Schroders book award-winner Stephen Witt on the FT Behind the Money podcast #BBYA25 open.spotify.com/episode/2xvq...
Onward and upward for stairlift maker Stannah, as the family heads upstairs and brings in its first non-family CEOs. My interview with 5th- and 6th-generation Jon and Sam Stannah on success, succession and family values as.ft.com/r/792c958b-d...
Joseph Stannah’s Rules of Life 1. Have a plan before-hand for everyday. 2. Acquire a habit of untiring industry. 3. Cultivate perseverance. 4. Cultivate the habit of punctuality. 5. Be an early riser. 6. Be in the habit of learning something from every man whom you meet. 7. Form fixed principles on which to think and act. 8. Be simple and neat in your personal habits. 9. Acquire a habit of doing everything well. 10. Make constant efforts to be master of your temper. 11. Cultivate soundness of judgement. 12. Observe a proper treatment of parents, friends and companions.
Also thanks to the Stannahs for introducing me to founder Joseph's 150-year-old "Rules of Life". Number 9: "Acquire a habit of doing everything well"
Onward and upward for stairlift maker Stannah, as the family heads upstairs and brings in its first non-family CEOs. My interview with 5th- and 6th-generation Jon and Sam Stannah on success, succession and family values as.ft.com/r/792c958b-d...
What if “the book could respond to the reader, and, using AI, generate a unique bespoke text that speaks directly to their concerns”? - my interview with FT/Schroders award-winner Stephen Witt on Jensen Huang, Nvidia and the future of books as.ft.com/r/7aa36214-e...
#BBYA25
It would certainly make a book award hard to judge... I was amazed to recall - as I mentioned in the piece - that Tom Friedman had, in his interview with me after taking the 2005 award, proposed a similar idea: a future "wiki" edition of The World is Flat, "written" by his readers
What if “the book could respond to the reader, and, using AI, generate a unique bespoke text that speaks directly to their concerns”? - my interview with FT/Schroders award-winner Stephen Witt on Jensen Huang, Nvidia and the future of books as.ft.com/r/7aa36214-e...
#BBYA25
Musk’s trillion-dollar payout “floats beyond Neptune, about 17,000 times the distance of a mere moonshot” - my column on why Elon’s out-of-this-world pay targets are as damaging as they are distant as.ft.com/r/3beb41c7-1... via @financialtimes
Brilliant piece about the women who made London divorce capital of the world - including a telling reference to a "fur-off" in St Petersburg, where some of them allegedly competed to sport the grandest accessory, by @joshspero.ft.com and Suzi Ring @journosooz.bsky.social www.ft.com/content/255a...