The Sunday Signal: The End of Mobile Networks, the Failure of Grants, and the Habit of Startups Essential insights on technology, money and government. Issue #25 – Sunday 5 October 2025 The Bottom Line Up Front Mobile networks, as we have known them, are on borrowed time. Starlink’s satellites are building a global grid of connectivity, offering data anywhere without roaming or gouging. At the same time, Britain’s grant system is failing to turn innovation into companies of scale. And too...
28 days ago • 6 min read
The Sunday Signal: Britain Invents, America Invests Essential insights on capital, cities, and the democratisation of startupsIssue #23 – Sunday 21 September 2025 ⏱️ 15 min read The Bottom Line Up Front This week, I want to focus on the way Britain is giving away its own future. We fund world-class research at universities like Bristol and Imperial. We train the engineers and scientists. We pay for the breakthroughs. Then our pension funds refuse to back the companies that grow from that...
about 1 month ago • 7 min read
The Sunday Signal: Advisers in Your Pocket Essential Insights on Tech’s Impact, Leadership Lessons, and Navigating Human PotentialIssue #22 – Sunday 14 September 2025 ⏱️ 15 min read The Bottom Line Up Front Last week we explored fiction, fragility, and frustration. This week is about productivity, perspective, and parody. In Westminster I heard how a former Cabinet minister prepares for meetings by turning documents into podcasts he listens to on the way. I also saw how founders are using...
about 2 months ago • 6 min read
The Sunday Signal: K.I.T.T. Would Have Had Wi-Fi Essential Insights on Tech’s Impact, Leadership Lessons, and Navigating Human PotentialIssue #21 – Sunday 7 September 2025 ⏱️ 10 min read The Bottom Line Up Front Last week, we explored Red Bull, reality, and the limits of AI. This week, we turn to the border between fiction and fact. From Knight Rider’s talking car to today’s autonomous vehicles, science fiction has an uncanny habit of predicting the future. In my Yorkshire Post column, I...
about 2 months ago • 7 min read
The Sunday Signal: The Power of Illusion Essential Insights on Tech’s Impact, Leadership Lessons, and Navigating Human PotentialIssue #20 – Sunday 31 August 2025 ⏱️ 10 min read The Bottom Line Up Front Last week we explored how bans and prohibitions can ignite curiosity and drive success. This week, we look at three very different lessons. My Yorkshire Post column traces how Red Bull turned regulatory panic into one of the sharpest marketing campaigns in history. We then turn to the...
2 months ago • 6 min read
The Sunday Signal: Anger in the Machine Essential Insights on Tech’s Impact, Leadership Lessons, and Navigating Human PotentialIssue #19 – Sunday 24 August 2025 ⏱️ 10 min read The Bottom Line Up Front Last week, we explored how artificial intelligence is testing the limits of privacy and accountability. This week, we turn to the social and human consequences. In Portland, a pro-AI gathering descended into chaos when protesters vandalised cars and spread manifestos calling AI an existential...
2 months ago • 5 min read
The Sunday Signal: When the Machine Knows Too Much Essential Insights on Tech’s Impact, Leadership Lessons, and Navigating Human PotentialIssue #18 – Sunday 10 August 2025 ⏱️ 10 min read The Bottom Line Up Front Last week, we explored how AI can lift people up. This week, we weigh the cost. More of us are confiding in chatbots, yet there is no legal privilege for what we tell them, and OpenAI says a US court order currently requires it to retain consumer ChatGPT and API content while...
3 months ago • 7 min read
The Sunday Signal: AI for Good, Healing Healthcare, and Steel Without Coal Essential Insights on Tech’s Impact, Leadership Lessons, and Navigating Human PotentialIssue #17 – Sunday 10 August 2025 ⏱️ 10 min read The Bottom Line Up Front From AI-designed materials that push the limits of physics, to algorithms helping NHS clinicians make rapid life-saving decisions, to Sweden’s move towards steelmaking without coal, we are witnessing a pattern. When innovation is applied with purpose, it can...
3 months ago • 7 min read
The Sunday Signal: Digital Revolutions, Manufacturing Resistance, and History's Harsh Lessons Essential Insights on Tech’s Impact, Leadership Lessons, and Navigating Human PotentialIssue #16 – Sunday 2 August 2025 ⏱️ 10 min read The Bottom Line Up Front Thirty-four years ago this week, Tim Berners-Lee quietly launched the world's first website, demonstrating how transformative innovations often emerge from solving practical problems. Meanwhile, British manufacturers' irrational resistance to...
3 months ago • 6 min read