WITH EYES like saucers, nine-year-old Ralph Miles slowly removes his Quest 2 headset. “It was like being in another galaxy!” he exclaims. He has just spent ten minutes blasting alien robots with deafening laser cannons—all the while seated silently in the home-electronics section of a London department store. Sales assistants bustle around, advertising the gear…
Big oil’s most reluctant decarboniser lays out its green planDARREN WOODS made some revealing remarks this week about global warming. His ruminations matter in America’s oil industry for he is the boss of Exxon Mobil, the largest Western oil major. His firm has historically been less enthusiastic than rivals about taking climate change seriously. But…
“SOUTH OF THE Huai river few geese can be seen through the rain and snow.” In classical Chinese this verse is a breakthrough—not in literature but in computing power. The line, composed by an artificial intelligence (AI) language model called Wu Dao 2.0, is indistinguishable in metre and tone from ancient poetry. The lab that…
Any effective system of greenhouse gas (GHG) accounting needs to measure each company’s supply-chain carbon impacts accurately, providing visibility and incentives for it to make more climate-friendly product-specification and purchasing decisions. The authors’ recent HBR article, “Accounting for Climate Change” (Nov-Dec 2021), noted how the current dominant system for carbon accounting, the GHG Protocol, misses…
Tricia Robinson is one of over 17,000 sellers planning to boycott Etsy from April 11 to 18 after the site announced it would be hiking its transaction fees from five to 6.5 per cent. In this 2015 file photo, Kristina Salen, center left, Etsy’s chief financial officer, stands with Chad Dickerson, center right, chairman and chief…
Most organizations that offer educational benefits require employees to pay upfront for courses, followed by some percentage of reimbursement. This limits who can afford to further their education: typically, those with robust savings and prior degrees are the ones who take advantage of the benefit. Recent analysis and data from Walmart and other organizations that…
Deciding to start a business can be life-changing, and it could be one of the best choices you have ever made. It’s…
April 07, 2022 There’s been much talk about the Great Resignation and what’s driving it. The pandemic has exacerbated a long-term problem: many of us struggle to find any pleasure in our work. But quitting isn’t the only the solution. Often, it’s not feasible. In this special series from HBR, we look at a different…
Web3 represents the next iteration of the World Wide Web. It’s built upon blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies, and is characterized by greater decentralization, transparency, and shared ownership. Web3 looks set to transform work as we know it. And the decentralized autonomous organization, or DAO, is set to be the vehicle that leads the charge. As…
When an organizational change is first proposed, most people immediately want to know three things: what does this change mean to me, why is it happening, and what will it look like when the change has been made? People only begin to be open to accepting, embracing, and making this change when their mindset starts…