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A weekly five-point roundup of critical events in the energy transition and their implications of climate change for business and finance. India: Hot, Without AC, But Has a Plan What happened: “India is pioneering a strategy to shield its 1.4 billion people from increasingly scorching heat — a potential blueprint for low-income countries facing the same climate-induced challenges. If it works.” Why it’s important: India has some of the longest, most brutal heat waves in …

1. ChatGPT has captured our imaginations — and nightmares — like nothing we’ve ever seen. The artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot gained 100 million users in just two months. That makes it the fastest-growing app, product, or business in history. It’s also sparked an investment frenzy. The value of “generative” AI firms has jumped sixfold in two years. And the amount of money pouring into AI startups has surged tenfold since 2020. ChatGPT is already doing …

A weekly five-point roundup of critical events in the energy transition and the implications of climate change for business and finance. 1. Latin America’s First Homegrown EV Is Here and It’s Tiny What happened: Bolivia is seeking to become a player in the electric vehicle (EV) market, as the country has an abundance of lithium reserves, a key ingredient in EV batteries. The country’s first homegrown EV company is Quantum Motors, whose cars are “the …

In his 1711 treatise An Essay on Criticism, English poet Alexander Pope wrote, “To err is human; to forgive, divine.” In the same essay, Pope also wrote, “Fools rush in where angels fear to tread,” “A little learning is a dangerous thing,” and “Our judgments, like our watches, none go just alike, yet each believes his own.” Criticism is the expression of disapproval of someone or something based on perceived faults or mistakes. Sixty-one years …

Big Idea is an occasional series in which we connect investors and businesspeople with new and emerging perspectives from academia and elsewhere. Gross Domestic Product (aka GDP) — one of the most commonly used indicators of economic performance — is drawing increasing heat for its inability to capture the true welfare of a society. In a recent episode of the BBC Radio 4’s podcast The Spark, host Helen Lewis spoke with science journalist Ehsan Masood, who has …

With customer data having gone back underground, the magical genie is back in the bottle. That means now is the time to prove that as advertisers and marketers, you can juggle both engagement and privacy. Just about a year ago, consumer data was everywhere and readily accessible. But following data restrictions by Apple, countless consumers have clawed back their privacy. Indeed, not only do consumers doubt the security of their personal data, they feel as …

Is 3D printing dead? A decade ago, 3D printing was the hottest buzzword on the planet. Investors piled in… and 3D-printing stocks took off like a rocket. 3D Systems DDD — a leading 3D-printing company at the time — soared 1,000% between late 2011 and early 2014. Stratasys SSYS — another poster child of the 3D-printing boom — jumped nearly 7x during the same period. Back then, people thought 3D printing would democratize manufacturing… and …

Writing in Techcrunch, Collin Wallace, managing director at Techstars Oakland, powered by J.P. Morgan, challenged the conventional wisdom that venture capital is always a good thing for a young company.  Wallace, who is also a lecturer at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business, acknowledged that advising young companies to turn down funding is an odd message for a professional capital allocator to deliver. To make his case, he identified four classic problems that he believes …

New Vreneli coin defines a new class of investment by fusing physical and digital value St. Gallen – A collaborative innovation, that could draw the attention of investors, tech freaks and art collectors, is Made in Switzerland and combines the traditional and the modern in a new edition of the popular Gold Vreneli coin. The new Crypto Vreneli bears an NFC chip. On reading out using an app on your mobile phone, you will be …