On WeWork’s IPO troubles

...in today's FT.

What It Takes

This was a fascinating book to work on and delighted to see it so well received.

Cryptocurrencies

My review of Finn Brunton's book, Digital Cash: The Unknown History of the Anarchists, Utopians, and Technologists Who Created Cryptocurrency. It is hard to imagine a community more removed from that of the stately columns and marble halls of central banks, than the wild and wooly pioneers of crypto. But they're moving ever close to…

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Late Bloomers

My review of Rich Karlgaard's inspiring book, Late Bloomers. It’s a nice idea that success can come at any point in life. You don’t have to be Mark Zuckerberg, vaulting up the rich-list rankings in his 20s, or Pete Buttigieg, running for president at 37. You can wait until you are more evolved and take…

Twilight of the Elites – French version

The deepening rift between the elites and the rest is not just an American phenomenon. Christophe Guilluy, a French geographer, analyzes how it's unfolding in France and the echoes are unmissable.

Leadership: Thatcher, Disney, Lincoln…Abu Musab al-Zarqawi

General Stanley McChrystal and Doris Kearns Goodwin take a stab at defining leadership. From Margaret Thatcher to Walt Disney. My review in the WSJ.

The Macron Miracle

I reviewed Sophie Pedder's excellent new book Revolution Francaise for today's WSJ. It's about the rise of Emmanuel Macron and the state of modern France. Macron and Trump are vastly different characters, but in their way expressions of similar political forces: discontent with the political establishment; anxiety over the effects of globalization and technology on…

The rise of the subscription economy

Tzien Tzuo and Gabe Weisert make the case for access over ownership in Subscribed. The lawnmower and car go the way of the CD collection.

Leaving Rangoon

This is a photo of my grandmother, Sylvia, my uncle, Ronald, my mother, Marcia, and aunt, Victoria, standing in front of their home in Rangoon in 1966 shortly before Ronald left to study in America. Since 1958, Burma had been slowly strangled by the Socialist military dictatorship of Ne Win. Many who could leave subsequently…

Amy Chua’s Political Tribes

Just reviewed Amy Chua's Political Tribes for the Evening Standard. I liked how she described America as the rare super-tribe, in which the idea of American-ness both binds and permits vastly disparate sub-groups. And how that unique concept has then blinded America to the importance of tribes during its overseas adventures. I was less convinced…