Heather Landy

Hi, Quartz members! Missed any of our other newsletters this week? Space Business looked at the lay of the land for US spaceports, The Memo from Quartz at Work shared the secret for sticking with long-term projects, and the Quartz Obsession had bushels of information about the global wheat trade. What’s your favorite Quartz newsletter? Let us know; as always, we’d love to hear from you! 5 things we especially liked on Quartz 🎯 Targeting Tesla. What will it look like as labor organizers put…

Hi, Quartz members! It’s Thanksgiving week in the US, and we are so very thankful for your readership. What are you feeling thankful for this year? Let us know; as always, we’d love to hear from you! 5 things we especially liked on Quartz 🔍 What Google pays for Safari searches. A talkative expert witness in court revealed Apple’s cut of the arrangement between the two tech giants. Ananya Bhattacharya shares the details. 🌌 Tracking the future of space. The US Space Force’s new tech acceler…

Charlie Munger, the longtime vice chair of Berkshire Hathaway, has died at 99. Once described by Bill Gates as “the broadest thinker I have ever encountered,” Munger seemed largely content to let his friend and business partner Warren Buffett absorb the spotlight at Berkshire’s annual shareholder gatherings in Omaha, where he was famous for saying “I have nothing to add” after Buffett fielded question after question from investors. But Munger was no wallflower. In particular, at annual shareho…

Hi, Quartz members! As we kick off the final month of 2023, we’re thinking a lot about the year ahead: 💪 How many new things will we accomplish? 🛑 Which bad habits will we finally break? 🥐 And perhaps most importantly, what image will we choose to replace the enticingly flaky croissant that lives atop the Sunday Reads newsletter? (Or should we replace it at all? 🤔) Let us know your 🥐 vote; as always, we’d love to hear from you! 5 things we especially liked on Quartz ✨ Iconic.…

Hi, Quartz members! We hope you’re enjoying Sunday Reads. Let us know what you think; we always love hearing from you! 5 things we especially liked on Quartz 🤑 Charged issue. The use of “buy now pay later” plans for internet shopping is growing fast, and some users say it’s giving their credit scores a boost. Laura Bratton looks at the circumstances where this makes sense, and the profile of consumers who might find BNPL to be more harmful than helpful. 🌍 Sending help, digitally. The tele…

Hi, Quartz members! Checked out already for the holidays? Not us—not yet. We’ll be taking a break soon enough, but first we’ve got some dispatches from the world of innovation to send your way later this month. 👁️ Keep an eye out for: Our 2023 Innovators list, highlighting the people behind some of the most interesting advancements this year in business and society 👂 Keep an ear out for: The launch of a new season of the Quartz Obsession podcast, with each episode offering the fascinating b…

Arthur Sadoun made a notable contribution to cancer care in 2023, and it had nothing to do with science or medicine. Rather, his focus is on corporate support for employees—both those of the French-based advertising juggernaut Publicis Groupe, where he is global CEO and chairman, and those of other companies across sectors around the world—who are being treated for cancer or caring for someone who is. In January, at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Sadoun and the Publicis Foundation announced…

Neobanks eschewing physical branches for digital technology have cropped up all over the world, with handy apps for budgeting, saving, and transferring funds. But only one such startup that we’re aware of had to sue their main regulator for the right to use artificial intelligence to root out suspicious activity by potentially law-breaking customers. In 2022, Bunq founder and CEO Ali Niknam won a landmark suit against the Dutch central bank, opening the door for new methods of bank monitoring f…

Studio sounds Tired of Taylor Swift? Far be it from us to promote such blasphemy. But if you need a break from the canon of Tay, you have options. An average of 112,000 tracks were uploaded to music streaming services each day in the first half of 2023, meaning roughly 40 million songs became potential playlist tracks last year. That’s a startling statistic, and you can draw a straight line from it back not to 1989 but to 1991. That’s when two tech-savvy musicians from the San Francisco Bay ar…

Hi, Quartz members! A fresh season of the Quartz Obsession podcast is underway, with four new episodes already available for your listening pleasure. Give them a spin and let us know what you think. We always love hearing from you! 5 things we especially liked on Quartz ⛾ Reduce, reuse, rethink it? Starbucks is now allowing customers in the US and Canada to use their own cups for mobile and drive-thru orders, and providing them a 10-cent discount for doing so. It sounds helpful for the enviro…

If you received this from a friend, click here to sign up! Welcome back to our annual Need to Know: Davos newsletter! We’ll be reporting to you all next week from World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in the Alps, where thousands of well-heeled members of the global citizenry will gather to discuss all kinds of problems they will then be pilloried for not doing more to solve. This year, Davos will draw roughly 1,600 business leaders (including 800 CEOs, with JPMorgan Chase’s Jamie Dimon, Mi…

The 2024 annual meeting of the World Economic Forum is nearly upon us. Or rather, it is nearly upon the charming Alpine ski village of Davos, Switzerland, which every year turns itself over to thousands of well-heeled members of the global citizenry to discuss all kinds of problems they will then be pilloried for not doing more to solve. It is a testament to both the human spirit and the allure of rubbing shoulders with a who’s who in the world of business that CEOs, government leaders, academ…

Hi, Quartz members! This weekend, we’re off to the Alps to rub shoulders with global financiers, world leaders, and Will.i.am, who at this point is giving even Bono a run for his money as the music industry’s most dependable regular at the World Economic Forum in Davos. We’ll check back here with you next Sunday, but for Davos dispatches in between, sign up for Quartz’s Need to Know: Davos 2024 newsletter. It will be fueled by Swiss chocolates, Nespresso, and champagne cocktails, naturally,…

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation approved its largest annual budget ever, committing $8.6 billion to help plug gaps in overall aid for health programs in the world’s poorest countries. The spending increase in 2024 will support a range of goals including the eradication of polio, development of new tuberculosis drugs, and delivery of supplies to stem child and maternal mortality. The 2024 budget builds on the organization’s $7 billion spent in 2022 and its $8.3 billion allocation for 2023.…

Greetings, Davos delegates and WEF watchers! The annual meeting of the World Economic Forum is packed with programming following yesterday’s preliminary meetings, an official welcome reception with a delectable display of Swiss chocolates, an evening dusting of snow, and the annual Crystal Awards ceremony. (Congratulations to actress Michelle Yeoh, musician Nile Rodgers, and architect Diébédo Francis Kéré.) I’m Quartz executive editor Heather Landy, your faithful Davos correspondent for the w…

At the 2024 annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, we’re sitting down with business leaders to ask what’s on their minds. For Paul Knopp, the CEO of KPMG US, that includes the business potential of artificial intelligence, the risks of wider geopolitical conflicts, and continuing diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts despite the political backlash. The following interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity. Quartz: What issue did you come to Davos fe…

Generating the past Picture your earliest memory—the who, what, and where of it. How do you feel when you remember it? Do you have any archival evidence of it? A photograph, a home movie, or, if you’re young enough, a social media post about it? What if you didn’t? How would you describe the scene? Which details would you be sure to include? And how would you feel if an image-generating bot making use of artificial intelligence was able to visualize your memory for you? Welcome to the conce…

On the sidelines of the World Economic Forum annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland, two very different visions of the future unfolded, courtesy of OpenAI chief Sam Altman and musician-turned-activist-turned-Davos-regular Will.i.am. As the surprise guest at a Salesforce lunch emceed by Marc Benioff, the Salesforce co-founder asked Altman to describe the implications of silicon-based intelligence. Altman’s detailed answer to the question is worth pondering. I think one of the most important ques…

Hi, Quartz members! This week we were in Davos, Switzerland, for the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum. Artificial intelligence dominated the discourse, as well as signage on the Promenade, the central artery through town where companies, governments, and interest groups set up shop for the week and host hours of meetings and cocktail receptions on the sidelines of the official conference grounds. One of the nice things about AI is its versatility as a topic. It was easily woven into…

The annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, brought together 3,000 participants from around the globe. That included 1,600 business leaders, 350 heads of state and government ministers, and hundreds of academics, civil society leaders, and entrepreneurs. It was an elite affair as always, with sky-high lodging fees, champagne nightcaps, and chances to see and be seen by people holding some of the most influential jobs on the planet. Quartz was on the ground all week, a…