Old-fashioned machines make a comebackDESPITE THE autumn chill, a group has gathered in front of the Iron Horse Royal Enfield dealership, a small stone building set in the Connecticut hills. A woman sits on a motorcycle, its single-cylinder engine thumping with a distinctive sound. In the window a striking chrome-and-black model looks much like what…
Posts published in “Commodities”
The new boss deserves credit for largely sticking with a successful strategyCHRIS KEMPCZINSKI is anything but supersized. One year into his tenure, the CEO of McDonald’s is a lean-framed 52-year-old who runs marathons. Hard to believe, then, that he eats a McDonald’s meal twice a day, five days a week. “There are days when I’m…
HERE IS A test. Assign a score of 1 to 5, where 1 is “strongly agree” and 5 is “strongly disagree”, to the following statement: “I really care about my work.” If you have answered that kind of question before, you have probably applied for a job at a large company. Psychometric tests, as they…
The death of its patriarch leaves South Korea’s biggest conglomerate with familiar challengesIN THE SPRING of 1995 word got to Lee Kun-hee that a batch of Samsung’s brand-new mobile phones, which it had doled out as new-year gifts, did not work. Incensed, the group’s chairman ordered employees at the factory that had made the offending…
The tech industry’s response to the killing of George Floyd has been stronger even than in other parts of the economyTO GET A sense of diversity in tech, take a stroll on University Avenue in Palo Alto, a city at the heart of Silicon Valley. Before the pandemic, if you encountered a black person, the…
Just 20 firms account for 70% of all corporate earningsAROUND THE world industries have grown more concentrated over the past few decades. In America 20 companies capture roughly a quarter of all corporate profits. If you thought that was sobering news for budding American capitalists, spare a thought for their Indian counterparts. According to a…