Member exclusive by Chika Dunga & Walter Frick For the past several decades, Silicon Valley has undisputedly been the epicenter of technology innovation. An area of about 50 square miles is responsible for generating some of the world’s most prominent companies, including Google and Apple. But the rest of the world is catching […]
FROM OUR OBSESSION Global Economic Disruptions Globalization, automation, and inequality. With people staying home and whole industries shut down due to the Covid-19 pandemic there is significantly less commerce than there used to be. Definitionally, this means that the sum of all of that commerce—known as GDP—has declined. Analysts and […]
FROM OUR OBSESSION Climate Consciousness Every decision counts. The “social cost of carbon” is a concept virtually unknown outside of academia and federal agencies. But this shadow metric—which estimates the dollar cost of putting one more ton of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere—touches virtually everything the government does. It informs […]
FROM OUR OBSESSION Big Tech Looking at Big Tech as the next Big Oil. Some products become a lot more valuable when you are forced to sit at home all day due to a pandemic. A serendipitous study of consumers in the UK tells us exactly which ones. From Feb. 27 […]
FROM OUR OBSESSION Being Human We’ve never been as connected, or as isolated. One reason the Covid-19 crisis has proven to be extremely difficult for many businesses is that customers are worried about their safety—and so are fearful of stepping out. That may be a boon for companies that offer […]
FROM OUR OBSESSION The Third Age of TV First came broadcast, then cable, now streaming. Most companies are having a tough time these days. Netflix, however, is doing just fine. The streaming service revealed today that it added more than 10 million global subscribers in the second quarter, beating both […]
FROM OUR OBSESSION The Aging Effect New thinking is required to serve an aging population. Every global region could see their populations decline by the end of the century—except Africa. The expected population contraction will be due to dropping fertility rates with death rates being either at par with or […]
School districts all over the United States are grappling with the prospect of reopening schools in August and September. Though school leaders want to give kids in-person instruction from which they benefit most (plus free up parents to return to work), they are mired in difficult questions: How do we […]
Early in the morning of Feb. 23, an aircraft took off from Vienna carrying 25 metric tons of personal protective equipment (PPE), including masks and gloves, to China. The city of Wuhan, where Covid-19 first emerged, had been in lockdown for a month. Nearly 2,500 people had died across the […]
FROM OUR OBSESSION Global Economic Disruptions Globalization, automation, and inequality. The US’s emergency program to keep small businesses afloat during the pandemic was far from perfect, and the data produced about the half a trillion dollars inloans is a total mess. But the former head of the Small Business Administration argues that […]