Articles
I have written articles, op-eds, and book reviews for many publications, including the New York Times, the New York Review of Books, Wired, the Financial Times, The Observer, The Telegraph, Reuters; and the New Statesman.
I currently write a column on economics, finance, and markets for Reuters Breakingviews.
For an archive of my other articles, columns, and op-eds, click here.
For an archive of my book reviews, click here.
A couple of recent pieces are below.
Gambling Man: the Wild Ride of Japan’s Masayoshi Son by Lionel Barber
The Financial Times | 16 October 2024
At the very beginning of Gambling Man, his biography of Masayoshi “Masa” Son, the founder of Japanese investment firm SoftBank, Lionel Barber concedes that his subject is “probably the most powerful mogul of the twenty-first century who is not a household name”. The rest of the book proceeds to prove how absurd a paradox this is.
Son is, after all, a biographer’s dream. His career is an almost surreal string of personal highs and lows. Zelig-like, he has been present at - and indeed often responsible for - almost every big turning point in global tech over the past four decades.
This is a man, Barber, a former editor of the FT, reminds us, who has been “the single largest foreign investor in capitalist America and communist China; the biggest start-up funder in the world, and the boss of one of the top ten most indebted firms, continually threatening a financial implosion”.
You can read my review of the book here.
The Financial Times | 16 October 2024
At the very beginning of Gambling Man, his biography of Masayoshi “Masa” Son, the founder of Japanese investment firm SoftBank, Lionel Barber concedes that his subject is “probably the most powerful mogul of the twenty-first century who is not a household name”. The rest of the book proceeds to prove how absurd a paradox this is.
Son is, after all, a biographer’s dream. His career is an almost surreal string of personal highs and lows. Zelig-like, he has been present at - and indeed often responsible for - almost every big turning point in global tech over the past four decades.
This is a man, Barber, a former editor of the FT, reminds us, who has been “the single largest foreign investor in capitalist America and communist China; the biggest start-up funder in the world, and the boss of one of the top ten most indebted firms, continually threatening a financial implosion”.
You can read my review of the book here.
AI’s civil war will force investors to take sides
Reuters Breakingviews | 7 February 2025
In their satirical history of the United Kingdom, “1066 And All That”, the authors W. C. Sellar and R. J. Yeatman cast the English civil war of the 17th century as a conflict between the “Wrong but Romantic” Cavaliers and the “Right but Revolting” Roundheads.
The aftermath of the release last month of Chinese startup DeepSeek’s R1 artificial intelligence model, which matches or outperforms existing offerings from U.S. technology titans at a fraction of the cost, has exposed a similar divide among the world’s leading innovators in the field of machine learning.
On one side are those who strive for artificial general intelligence (AGI), the point where machines match or surpass human capabilities. Let’s call them AI Cavaliers. Facing them are AI Roundheads who are focused on the more mundane goal of solving specific problems as efficiently as possible. Deciding which side to back in this AI civil war will be a defining decision for investors in the world’s hottest technology.
You can read why in my column here.
Reuters Breakingviews | 7 February 2025
In their satirical history of the United Kingdom, “1066 And All That”, the authors W. C. Sellar and R. J. Yeatman cast the English civil war of the 17th century as a conflict between the “Wrong but Romantic” Cavaliers and the “Right but Revolting” Roundheads.
The aftermath of the release last month of Chinese startup DeepSeek’s R1 artificial intelligence model, which matches or outperforms existing offerings from U.S. technology titans at a fraction of the cost, has exposed a similar divide among the world’s leading innovators in the field of machine learning.
On one side are those who strive for artificial general intelligence (AGI), the point where machines match or surpass human capabilities. Let’s call them AI Cavaliers. Facing them are AI Roundheads who are focused on the more mundane goal of solving specific problems as efficiently as possible. Deciding which side to back in this AI civil war will be a defining decision for investors in the world’s hottest technology.
You can read why in my column here.