Six great reads: the world's scariest CEO, gen Z in the workplace, and a lost great console

"For the past few decades, Alex Karp has stayed largely under the radar, but a new biography, reveals him to be a complex, thoughtful, often contradictory personality, with a background that explains many of his insecurities. Steve Rose profiled the fitness-obsessed billionaire tech leader whose business is at the heart of many governments, including the US, where its AI-powered data-analysis technology is fuelling the deportations being carried out by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the Pentagon's unmanned drone programme, police departments' (allegedly racist) profiling of potential criminals and much more besides."

"A few days after the 2024 UK general election, John Crace wrote that he felt as if the grownups were back in charge and that Britain had regained a basic level of competence, that politics would become business as usual rather than a breathless psychodrama. So what would he write about? It turns out he needn't have worried. Ahead of his new book, The Bonfire of the Insanities, our parliamentary sketch writer took stock of the political scene: from Labour's serial cockups to the Conservatives' impressive ability to be even less popular."

"How exactly, asked Leslie T Chang, did a waiguoren a Cambridge-educated white woman who grew up 5,000 miles away become accepted as an authority on matters so important to the Chinese? Amid China's rapid transition to a modern industrialised nation, Chang wrote, traditional ways of eating and living are disappearing. It has fallen to Dunlop, an outsider, to study the history, to sift through the tradition, and to taste the dishes as if for the first time."

Alex Karp remained largely under the radar for decades. He is portrayed as complex, thoughtful, often contradictory, and fitness-obsessed. His background contributes to insecurities. His company’s AI-driven data-analysis tools support US government functions, including ICE deportations, Pentagon unmanned drone programmes, and police profiling. After the 2024 UK general election, John Crace felt Britain regained a basic level of competence and expected politics to return to business as usual. John Crace reviewed the political scene, noting Labour's repeated mishaps and the Conservatives' falling popularity. Fuchsia Dunlop, a Cambridge-educated foreigner, became recognized for documenting disappearing Chinese culinary traditions.

Read at www.theguardian.com