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...
The CEO who carries seven mice in her backpack and why Logitech will provide “the eyes, the ears and the hands of AI”. My FT interview with Hanneke Faber, former high-diver who plunged into tech on.ft.com/48vywuv
Pilita Clark is rightly irritated and unnerved by the ubiquity of AI “helpers” - but I worry what will happen when they no longer bother declaring themselves on.ft.com/489Do9B @pilitaclark.bsky.social
“This whole thing is just a no: a book about business [and] privileged white guys making lots of money” - many publishers rejected the novel Drayton and Mackenzie. I talked to author Alexander Starritt about why fiction only sees the bad in business on.ft.com/3KpKjSX #BBYA25
NEW: The best business books of 2025, our annual interview with @andrewtghill.ft.com, organizer of the Financial Times Business Book of the Year Award:
fivebooks.com/best-books/b...
I don’t think it was sour grapes - he did after all find a publisher and the novel has been a success - more a reflection on the difficulty of getting recognition for the book’s worldview about business
“This whole thing is just a no: a book about business [and] privileged white guys making lots of money” - many publishers rejected the novel Drayton and Mackenzie. I talked to author Alexander Starritt about why fiction only sees the bad in business on.ft.com/3KpKjSX #BBYA25
My must-read business books of 2025 on.ft.com/48gpt1s #FTBizBooks #BusinessBooks
A fascinating, nuanced and troubling @financialtimes.com Magazine cover story on the terrible threat and reality of parricide, from @emmavj.bsky.social
‘No thing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.’
Fabulous FT investigation into MBS’s Ozymandian fantasy
ig.ft.com/saudi-neom-l...
