Viewed from the bubble of Silicon Valley, the world often looks like a single undifferentiated market. There are plenty of examples that seem to support this notion. In addition to tech giants like Google and Facebook, the last decade or so has seen the emergence of new Silicon Valley-based businesses. Companies like eBay, Netflix, Uber […]
It was hard not to detect a defensive, even plaintive, tone in Mark Zuckerberg’s open letter to Facebook users this weekend. “After the election, many people are asking whether fake news contributed to the result,” he acknowledged. But that’s not what they were asking at all, and Zuckerberg knows it. Yes, Facebook (and the internet […]
Most companies estimate they are analysing just 12 per cent of the data they hold, and it is likely the government is doing far worse than that. As the array of data collected about us rapidly expands – with our mobile phones, cars and Oyster cards recording more and more information about who we are, where […]
The proposed merger between AT&T and Time Warner is the biggest of big news – and not just in business circles. Bernie Sanders is already fulminating against the deal, with Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton not far behind. At $86 billion, the planned tie-up between America’s largest telecoms company and one of its largest media […]
The death of filmmaker Curtis Hanson will inevitably have people talking first and foremost about his detective noir masterpiece, LA Confidential. But the film of his that sticks in my memory most is a more contemporary affair: 8 Mile. A perfect fusion of grim and gritty urban drama and superhero origin movie, it saw Eminem, […]
When people think of the sharing economy, they probably think of Uber and AirBnB. These companies have quickly become household names, setting new standards of consumer satisfaction by reducing transaction costs and allowing service providers to connect directly with customers. Tourists are now able to find all sorts of affordable accommodation, whilst home owners make […]
Private appropriation of space is on the way and it could be a great news for those involved. A major technico-economic mutation always has unexpected consequences. Who could have foreseen, ten years ago, that the Moore law and the NBIC mutation (convergence of Nanotechnologies, Biotechnologies, Informatics and Cognitive sciences) would dramatically reduce the costs of spatial […]
I’ll start with a confession. When it comes to The Great Acceleration, I’ve been something of a decelerant. This book would likely have hit the shelves years earlier had its author not had the misfortune to find himself labouring under my whip at the Telegraph for a decent chunk of the past decade. In my […]
Over the Christmas week, CapX is republishing its favourite pieces from the past year. You can find the full list here. You can now walk into a supermarket in every developed country in the world and expect shelves to be full and prices to be low. In the developing world, malnutrition has halved since 1990 […]
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