Unusual thinking
Conversations with outside experts help our investment managers tap into the flow of new ideas and signpost future developments. They can involve academics whose work we sponsor and authors who come to our attention via the literary festivals that we supports.
Conversations with inspiring minds
Ahead of the game: rethinking play’s importance
Kelly Clancy makes the case for why play is more important than you might think.
Private companies and the Power Law
Author Sebastian Mallaby on the attraction of investing in game-changing firms at an early stage.
A warning on warming
Author John Vaillant’s prize-winning Fire Weather spells out the lessons of a Canadian inferno.
The elements behind everything
Material World author Ed Conway shares insights on six commodities crucial to our progress.
Exposing AI’s costs
Prof Kate Crawford on artificial intelligence’s environmental and social impacts.
Shakespeare: Elizabethan entrepreneur
James Shapiro sheds new light on the life of the Bard.
Nuts and Bolts: engineering progress
How seven small often overlooked inventions shape our lives in remarkable ways.
The future of cybersecurity
Veteran data security expert Mikko Hyppönen on cyberwarfare and AI’s challenge.
AI Superpowers
Renowned investor Kai-Fu Lee revisits his prophetic book, five years on.
Making sense of the metaverse
Author Matthew Ball on the next-generation internet and the companies building its foundations.
Chip War
How semiconductors bring a competitive world together.
Author interview: Closing the gap
Sally Magnusson interviews Mary Ann Sieghart about her argument that bias can undermine professional women.
Frames of mind
Viktor Mayer-Schönberger discusses the human advantage of decision making in the age of big data.
The storyteller: Tony Fadell
After his book on succeeding in tech, the man behind the iPod and Nest is investing to solve climate change.
Study guides
Academic partnerships that generate new ideas
The story of science retold
It's wrong to credit a handful of western geniuses with revealing the secrets of the universe, according to James Poskett. The science historian introduces Alice Ross to the pioneers left out of our history books.
Pioneering potter
The V&A’s Tristram Hunt discusses how the 18th century entrepreneur crafted disruptive change.
Cogs and monsters
Virtual goods and the value of digital data pose unresolved challenges to economists, investors and regulators.
The OxyContin empire
Tile description: Patrick Radden Keefe charters the rise and fall of the Sackler dynasty.
Tribal knowledge
Companies that hire anthropologists to get inside customers' minds would do better getting them to look at their own corporate behaviour, Gillian Tett tells Pádraig Belton.
Living for the long term
Australian philosopher Roman Krznaric talks about putting our descendants’ best interests above our own instant gratification.
Lessons from Bessembinder
What a US academic taught us about the companies that outperform.
Blurring the boundaries of our identity
The definition of what makes you who you are was once a simple matter. But as Tracey Follows explains to Pádraig Belton, big tech has encroached on our personal space.
Exponential change: minding the gap
Tech advances are outpacing older institutions’ ability to adapt, says author Azeem Azhar.
What makes us different?
Being Edinburgh-based gives us stability and perspective, but we are truly global in our investment approach.