The Daily News

International Women’s Day Profile: Janine Grainger, Co-Founder and CEO, Easy Crypto

Janine is a kiwi-born entrepreneur and a highly respected Leader in tech. She’s the Co-Founder and CEO of Easy Crypto, New Zealand’s leading cryptocurrency trading platform. Janine and her brother, Alan, established Easy Crypto in 2017 to offer a secure, simple and easy-to-understand way for everyone to get involved in the cryptocurrency market. Just four years after launching, Easy Crypto transacted over two billion dollars and supports over 250,000 users across NZ, Australia and South Africa. She also set a new record for a first funding round in NZ in 2021, raising $17M NZD. Janine is very highly regarded in the NZ fintech sector, driving collaboration between the industry, central government, and traditional finance. She sits on a number of government advisory and working groups, including the Digital Trust Working Group formed in 2023 to advise APEC and was invited to join the V20 virtual asset summit, convened as part of the 2022 G20. She sits on the Executive Council for FinTechNZ, features in a Docuseries for TVNZ, has been recognised as a University of Auckland Top 40 under 40, a Women of Web3 Top 10 Changemaker, is the Blockchain NZ Stand-Out Individual & Entrepreneur of the year and was the winner of the 2023 IBM Hi-Tech Awards for Inspiring Individual. Background story Under her leadership, Easy Crypto has become New Zealand’s leading cryptocurrency trading platform, making big waves in just four years. Janine’s journey is as unique as it is inspiring – from leaving school early to pursue her ambitions, to starting a business from a hammock in Bali. Easy Crypto was started from a hammock in Bali! “Having left school at 15 – I was ambitious and impatient to learn more than the lessons a traditional schoolroom provides and my pathway into tech and crypto has been anything […]

International Women’s Day Profile: Keren Cook, NatureBee CEO

Could you share with us a bit about what your role entails at NatureBee? As CEO, I steer NatureBee’s vision toward innovative natural health solutions, manage our dedicated team, and engage in strategic decisions, from product development to market expansion. It’s a role that keeps me on my toes! How is NatureBee progressing? Despite global economic headwinds we’ve managed not only to stay afloat but grow. We’re making a conscious pivot to enhance logistics, specifically designed to underpin further expansion into key markets like Australia and the United States. This has been possible due to an intimate understanding of our customer base and an unwavering commitment to natural, quality health products. New products, exciting times? Definitely exciting times! We are launching PowerBee, a pollen-fuelled health shake, which reflects our commitment to innovation. It’s the culmination of rigorous scientific testing, product development, and natural goodness – and over two years of R&D perfecting the recipe, working closely with a human immunologist (PhD) refining logistics, and aligning our branding to ensure it’s just right. As someone passionate about wellness, for me this product is a perfect example of how we harness nature for balanced nutrition. We know that the fitness community well understands the benefits of PowerBee, particularly in the realms of both energy and recovery, but we also want to reach those who would benefit from a high-quality nutritional solution, while on the go. What challenges does your job present to you? Every day is different. The current economic climate demands strategic manoeuvring to maintain sales growth and market position. Keeping up with the rapid pace of e-commerce’s ever-shifting landscape poses its own challenges, as does managing an international brand from our Kiwi roots. What developments keep you awake at night? The potential of what’s next for NatureBee and ensuring we […]

How to Buy an Island

How to Buy an Island is the definitive account of the Barclay brothers, charting their incredible journey to power and fortune. Author Jane Martinson unravels previously-buried stories from the brothers’ six-decade long reign at the peak of British business: from their close association with Margaret Thatcher and the massive wealth they garnered from it; to their audacious and controversial acquisition of The Telegraph newspaper; to the scandalous inside story of their public fallout, a dispute mired in succession, betrayal, espionage and inheritance which ultimately left the family split in two. But this is not just a biography of two of Britain’s strangest billionaires. This is the story of a world that would become Brexit Britain, with its tightly enmeshed webs of influence between capitalism, politics and the media. The lives of the brothers reveal much about post-war Britain and a new, ruthless way of doing business which has proved remarkably resilient – they built their wealth in the UK, but retained it by siphoning the profits from their network of private companies to offshore entities in a purposefully complicated corporate web. How To Buy An Island is an examination of politics, corruption, deception, power and money over the last 70 years of British history – not just the story of two impoverished children-turned-billionaire-knights-of-the-empire, but a story of humanity, its limitations and, ultimately, its power to change the world.

What is degrowth?

a radical economic theory born in the 1970s. It broadly means shrinking rather than growing economies, to use less of the world’s dwindling resources. Detractors of degrowth say economic growth has given the world everything from cancer treatments to indoor plumbing. Supporters argue that degrowth doesn’t mean “living in caves with candles” – but just living a bit more simply. How do we save our planet? Some economists believe the only way is to radically scale back our global consumption of resources. This is a key premise of degrowth – a political and economic theory that is gaining traction as fears grow over climate change. But is it workable? What is degrowth? Degrowth broadly means shrinking rather than growing economies, so we use less of the world’s energy and resources and put wellbeing ahead of profit. The idea is that by pursuing degrowth policies, economies can help themselves, their citizens and the planet by becoming more sustainable. Practical degrowth actions might include buying less stuff, growing your own food and using empty houses instead of building new ones. Degrowth as a term was coined in 1972 by Austrian-French social philosopher André Gorz, according to the website Degrowth.info. As a movement, degrowth started to take off in the early 2000s, according to media platform openDemocracy. Modern degrowth protagonists include French economist Serge Latouche, who argues that society’s current model of economic growth is unsustainable. Why does Degrowth matter? Government policies have focused on growing and expanding economies ever since. With increasing awareness about climate change, the degrowth debate has accelerated. If economic growth continues to be the default goal, it will lead to climate catastrophe, the argument goes, with no hope of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees. It seems to be no coincidence that global warming caused by humans started around the 1830s, scientists believe, when the world’s […]

Elon Musk by Walter Issacson

Walter Isaacson is the author of biographies of Jennifer Doudna, Leonardo da Vinci, Steve Jobs, Benjamin Franklin, and Albert Einstein. This is the intimate story of one of the most fascinating and controversial innovators of our era—a rule-breaking visionary who helped to lead the world into the era of electric vehicles, private space exploration, and artificial intelligence. And took over Twitter. When Elon Musk was a kid in South Africa, he was regularly beaten by bullies. One day a group pushed him down some concrete steps and kicked him until his face was a swollen ball of flesh. He was in the hospital for a week. But the physical scars were minor compared to the emotional ones inflicted by his father, an engineer, rogue, and charismatic fantasist. His father’s impact on his psyche would linger. He developed into a tough yet vulnerable man-child, prone to abrupt Jekyll-and-Hyde mood swings, with an exceedingly high tolerance for risk, a craving for drama, an epic sense of mission, and a maniacal intensity that was callous and at times destructive. At the beginning of 2022—after a year marked by SpaceX launching thirty-one rockets into orbit, Tesla selling a million cars, and him becoming the richest man on earth—Musk spoke ruefully about his compulsion to stir up dramas. “I need to shift my mindset away from being in crisis mode, which it has been for about fourteen years now, or arguably most of my life,” he said. It was a wistful comment, not a New Year’s resolution. Even as he said it, he was secretly buying up shares of Twitter, the world’s ultimate playground. Over the years, whenever he was in a dark place, his mind went back to being bullied on the playground. Now he had the chance to own the playground. For two […]

Selling a Fantasy Future of the Metaverse, Mars, and Crypto

Jonathan Taplin is director emeritus of the Annenberg Innovation Lab at the University of Southern California and author of Move Fast and Break Things, which was nominated for the Financial Times / McKinsey Business Book of the Year. This is a brilliant takedown and exposé of the great con job of the twenty-first century—the metaverse, crypto, space travel, transhumanism—being sold by Peter Thiel, Mark Zuckerberg, Marc Andreesen, Elon Musk, leading to the degeneration and bankruptcy of our society. At a time when the crises of income inequality, climate, and democracy are compounding to create epic wealth disparity, these four business men are hyping schemes, designed to divert our attention away from issues that really matter. Each scheme—the metaverse, cryptocurrency, space travel, and transhumanism—is an existential threat in moral, political, and economic terms. In The End of Reality¸ Jonathan Taplin provides perceptive insight into the personal backgrounds and cultural power of Peter Thiel, Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, and Marc Andreesen and shows how their tech monopolies have brought middle-class wage stagnation, the hollowing out of many American towns, a radical increase in income inequality, and unbounded public acrimony. Meanwhile, the enormous amount of taxpayer money to be funneled into the dystopian ventures of “The Four,” the benefits of which will accrue to billionaires, exacerbate these disturbing trends. The End of Reality is both scathing critique and reform agenda that replaces the warped worldview of “The Four” with a vision of regenerative economics that seeks to build a sustainable society with healthy growth and full employment.

Wifedom

Is the story of the marriage behind some of the most famous literary works of the 20th century —and a probing consideration of what it means to be a wife and a writer in the modern world. At the end of summer 2017, Anna Funder found herself at a moment of peak overload. Family obligations and household responsibilities were crushing her soul and taking her away from her writing deadlines. She needed help, and George Orwell came to her rescue. “I’ve always loved Orwell,” Funder writes, “his self-deprecating humour, his laser vision about how power works, and who it works on.” So after rereading and savoring books Orwell had written, she devoured six major biographies tracing his life and work. But then she read about his forgotten wife, and it was a revelation. Eileen O’Shaughnessy married Orwell in 1936. O’Shaughnessy was a writer herself, and her literary brilliance not only shaped Orwell’s work, but her practical common sense saved his life. But why and how, Funder wondered, was she written out of their story? Using newly discovered letters from Eileen to her best friend, Funder re-creates the Orwells’ marriage, through the Spanish Civil War and the Second World War in London. As she peeks behind the curtain of Orwell’s private life she is led to question what it takes to be a writer—and what it is to be a wife. A breathtakingly intimate view of one of the most important literary marriages of the twentieth century, Wifedom speaks to our present moment as much as it illuminates the past. Genre-bending and utterly original, it is an ode to the unsung work of women everywhere.

Johnson at 10: The Inside Story

by Anthony Seldon & Raymond Newell The UK had Magaret Thatcher and Teresa May who held the ship steady for a few years. Tony Blair, an American ‘poodle’, David Cameron ex-PR, and more lately, Lis Trusk, here and gone in five minutes and of course, Boris Johnson, almost as unhinged as that bloke in the USA who was president before this current one. Across Australasia Paul Keating was one of the better leaders, and in Singapore Lee Kuan Yew. But back to Boris… After his dramatic rise to power in the summer of 2019 amid the Brexit deadlock, Boris Johnson presided over the most turbulent period of British history in living memory. Beginning with the controversial prorogation of Parliament in August and the historic landslide election victory later that year, Johnson was barely through the door of No. 10 when Britain was engulfed by a series of crises that will define its place in the world for decades to come. From the agonising upheaval of Brexit and the devastating Covid-19 pandemic to the nerve-shredding crisis in Afghanistan and the outbreak of war in Ukraine, Johnson’s government ultimately unravelled after just three years. This gripping behind-the-scenes work of contemporary history maps Johnson’s time in power from start to finish and sheds new light on the most divisive Prime Minister to have led the United Kingdom since Thatcher. Based on more than 200 interviews with key aides, allies and insiders, Johnson at 10 gives the first full account of Johnson’s premiership, the shockwaves of which are still felt today. There was utter chaos inside 10 Downing Street where Johnson took huge risks with the truth and malleable principles. His ineptness performing the basic functions are here for all to see. -Doug Green, Publisher, The Mirror www.themirrorinspires.com

Nuclear powered submarines to keep an eye on the “wolf warrior”

The submarines will be patrolling the waters, keeping an eye out for the ‘wolf warrior”.

IF THEN: How the Simulmatics Corporation Invented the Future

– Jill Lepore A brilliant, revelatory account of the Cold War origins of the data-mad, algorithmic twenty-first century, from the author of the acclaimed international bestseller, These Truths. The Simulmatics Corporation, founded in 1959, mined data, targeted voters, accelerated news, manipulated consumers, destabilised politics, and disordered knowledge–decades before Facebook, Google, Amazon, and Cambridge Analytica. Silicon Valley likes to imagine it has no past but the scientists of Simulmatics are the long-dead grandfathers of Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk. Borrowing from psychological warfare, they used computers to predict and direct human behaviour, deploying their “People Machine” from New York, Cambridge, and Saigon for clients that included John Kennedy’s presidential campaign, the New York Times, Young & Rubicam, and, during the Vietnam War, the Department of Defense. Jill Lepore, distinguished Harvard historian and New Yorker staff writer, unearthed from the archives the almost unbelievable story of this long-vanished corporation, and of the women hidden behind it. In the 1950s and 1960s, Lepore argues, Simulmatics invented the future by building the machine in which the world now finds itself trapped and tormented, algorithm by algorithm. “A person can’t help but feel inspired by the riveting intelligence and joyful curiosity of Jill Lepore. Knowing that there is a mind like hers in the world is a hope-inducing thing.” –George Saunders “Everything Lepore writes is distinguished by intelligence, eloquence, and fresh insight. If Then is that, and even more: It’s absolutely fascinating, excavating a piece of little-known American corporate history that reveals a huge amount about the way we live today and the companies that define the modern era.” –Susan Orlean “Data science, Jill Lepore reminds us in this brilliant book, has a past, and she tells it through the engrossing story of Simulmatics, the tiny, long-forgotten company that helped invent our data-obsessed world, in which prediction is seemingly […]

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