Latest news with #Heraclitus
Forbes
16-06-2025
- Business
- Forbes
How Companies Can Shape Their Future, Even During Turbulent Times
Parna Sarkar-Basu is the founder of B&B Consulting and writes about entrepreneurship, transformation, innovation & tech for good. The recent market volatility is testing our collective resiliency once again. The soaring inflation, plummeting U.S. consumer confidence, global supply chain disruptions and tariff announcements have collided to create an era of profound uncertainty—a perfect storm, making traditional playbooks obsolete in many situations. Yet, as unsettling as today's economic turbulence may feel, it's not that unprecedented. From the 1987 stock market crash to the 2008 financial crisis, history has taught us one powerful truth: Even the roughest waters eventually calm, and the companies that adapt are often the ones that emerge stronger and more profitable. As entrepreneurs, we know resilience doesn't happen by chance. It requires a sharp eye, agility and courage to evolve and thrive. As the Greek philosopher Heraclitus is commonly paraphrased: "No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river, and he's not the same man." In business, as in life, the only constant is change, and I've found survival belongs to those who embrace it. Based on conversations with my peers and clients, as well as watching how big companies are navigating the choppy waters, here are my tips on how small- and mid-sized companies can not only survive during these uncertain times but thrive. During turbulent times, companies must act fast, often with limited data and visibility. The most successful leaders have what economics professor Christian Busch calls the "muscle for the unexpected"—a strategic instinct honed by years of navigating uncertainty that helps them thrive in times of great turmoil. It allows them to harness the power of the unexpected, which then becomes a welcome source of opportunity and a mechanism for sustained success. Today, the challenge isn't finding information but rather knowing which signals to trust. Many large companies have faced massive market shifts recently and responded by embedding AI (artificial intelligence) into their core business strategies. For example, Microsoft outlined their vision for AI at the Ignite 2023 event; Salesforce is buying Informatica, an AI-powered cloud data management company; and IBM has announced their intentions to be an AI-first enterprise. I've noticed that companies finding success don't just chase the AI hype blindly. They identify where AI could drive real operational efficiency and customer value. Then, they broadly amplify their strategy and share data-based milestones. Granted, these companies often have bigger budgets and more resources, but the lesson here for small businesses and startups is to understand the trends and adopt what will work for them and their customers. Don't just adopt buzzwords and hope customers will buy. Once a company is comfortable aligning with a trend, plan the pivot strategy. Remember, pivots aren't about chasing the latest trend. They are about realigning and evolving with intent to meet emerging opportunities, not fleeting buzz. Smart businesses also assemble cross-functional 'insight teams' to scan for real-time developments—market feedback, emerging consumer habits, competitive moves—and propose pivots that align tightly with long-term goals. Netflix, for example, shifted gears and launched an ad-supported tier, cracked down on password sharing and restructured its pricing. This helped increase revenue per user and boost margins. I think this move shows a recognition that growth alone doesn't guarantee sustainability—profitability does. LEGO took a different approach. Once perceived as simply a toy company, Lego reinvented itself as a multi-platform entertainment and experience-first brand. Through immersive retail stores, TV shows like LEGO Masters, theme parks and sustainability-focused R&D, LEGO expanded its footprint well beyond developing plastic interlocking bricks. In my view, this is because Lego didn't abandon its roots; it deepened them. Rather than chasing trends, they redefined the future of play. The message for small businesses: Set clear goals. Focus on long-term impact. Don't panic or overreact to shifting market noise. Pivot with purpose. Once your pivot strategy is in place, share relevant goals and results publicly. Let your stakeholders know where you are headed and why. Most importantly, let them know how it'll impact your customers. Often, companies slash marketing budgets and go silent during market turmoils. That's a mistake. Transparency and foresight matters. Samsung signaled further investment in India, a move showing its long-term diversification strategy. And according to Reuters, Apple "aims to make most of its iPhones sold in the United States at factories in India by the end of 2026, and is speeding up those plans to navigate potentially higher tariffs in China, its main manufacturing base." Or take Delta Air Lines. It announced that it would defer deliveries of Airbus planes as it faced significant U.S. tariffs on European aircraft, a move expected to increase the cost of each aircraft by approximately 20%. These are often difficult decisions to make. But once the decision is made, companies need to publicly and clearly communicate them to all. Stakeholders shouldn't have to guess where a company stands. For small businesses, visibility, especially digital visibility, isn't vanity. It's a survival strategy. According to the Harvard Business Review, "Companies that have bounced back most strongly from previous recessions usually did not cut their marketing spend, and in many cases actually increased it." So, don't think short term. Lean in during hard times to see long-term success. Whether you're leading a startup or scaling a mid-sized company, you likely have more control than you realize. Stay focused. Be transparent. Embrace agility. Protect your financial foundation. Because in business, as in life, change is the only constant. You won't step into the same river twice. So, plan each crossing with intention, clarity and discipline. That's how you move forward and come out stronger on the other side. Forbes Business Council is the foremost growth and networking organization for business owners and leaders. Do I qualify?
Hindustan Times
13-06-2025
- Science
- Hindustan Times
Master of disguise: Meet the inventor of a state-of-the-art invisibility cloak
In some ways, he is himself the stuff of science-fiction. For thousands of years, dating to ancient Greek and Welsh myths, then sci-fi and the worlds of HG Wells and Harry Potter, storytellers and scientists have toyed with the idea of the invisibility cloak. Wells, who foresaw the aircraft and army tank, atomic bomb and Wikipedia, wrote of a scientist committed to invisibility in The Invisible Man (1897). This scientist learnt how to change the way light reflected off his body. In Canada, George Eleftheriades has done something similar. He can't erase himself from view, but he has so far been able to hide large, bulky objects from radar, using just a thin layer of rather magical antennae. It's a bit like noise-cancelling headphones, he says, with remarkable modesty. (It isn't that simple at all.) But before we get to how it works, a bit about who he is. Eleftheriades, 60, is a professor of electrical and computer engineering at the University of Toronto. Growing up in Cyprus, he was obsessed with science as a child. He had chemicals bubbling over in his room, microorganisms squirming under microscopes, and burn marks on the wooden floor, he says, with a laugh. He was fascinated by radiowaves, which felt a bit like magic. As he grew, he had his imagination sparked by the way ancient Greek philosophers, particularly Heraclitus, viewed scientific concepts. (Heraclitus, of course, famously expressed the idea of constant flux by noting that one can't step into the same river twice.) Following where his heart led, Eleftheriades studied electrical engineering in Athens, after which he moved to the US for a Master's and PhD from University of Michigan. He worked on ultra-sensitive radiowave receivers in Switzerland from 1994 to '97, and has been at University of Toronto ever since. A decade ago, he became something of a 'stealth' agent. In 2015, the Canadian military reached out to ask if he could take the work done so far on stealth technology, and build on it. He has now won the prestigious IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) Electromagnetics Award for his work on metamaterials and metasurfaces, and the creation of an 'invisibility cloak'. *** How does the cloak work? Well, we 'see' an object, as Eleftheriades points out, when light hits it and scatters. Based on how the rays are scattered and reflected, we perceive shapes, colours, depth and distance. His cloaking device emits waves of its own that cancel out the scattering as it occurs. (In this way, it is a bit like noise-cancelling headphones, which emit soundwaves to counter soundwaves.) His device does this through the use of metamaterials, which are manmade materials designed to behave in ways that normal materials cannot. Fundamentally, they are built to control the flow of waves — radio, sound, light — in unprecedented ways. The world's first metamaterial was created in the US in 2001, and research has sped up since. Key applications include lenses that can see more clearly, more refined diagnostic scans, vastly improved antennas and sensors… and 'invisibility cloaks'. In the case of this last one, early efforts required bulky 3D structures, and though they did deceive radar they did not do it as effectively. Eleftheriades's 'cloak' is a relatively elegant network of antennae, something like a circuit board, that sits on the surface of an object to be rendered invisible. As it interferes with incoming light waves, it forces them to bend or scatter differently, creating the impression that the object simply isn't there. 'We tried this first with a flat object and then with a cylinder,' he says. 'Both 'disappear' in that they cannot be seen by any radar system.' *** There's a lot the 'cloak' can do beyond hiding stealth weapons. Metamaterials have already been used to make lenses that, for the first time in history, are flat and homogenous. Eleftheriades and his team have used such lenses to make super-microscopes that are 10 times as powerful as existing equivalents. He and his team also recently developed a metasurface that could be placed along walls, to reflect radiowaves from cellphones and wi-fi routers in ways that magnify their strength and quality. What about making something actually vanish from sight? The closest he has come to doing this is when he put the 'cloak' on a car and had it zoom past speed sensors. It left no impression on the doppler-wave detectors at all. To the observer, of course, the car was moving past in plain view. Any chance that may change? 'The stuff you see in Star Trek, where something disappears behind a shield and is just gone… we're not there yet,' he says. 'That is worlds more complicated.' Seeing is still believing, then… at least offline, and at least for now.
Japan Times
30-05-2025
- Business
- Japan Times
Western businesses will not return to Russia
In recent weeks, Russian officials have promoted the idea that once the war in Ukraine ends, Western businesses — particularly American companies — would be welcome to return to Russia. The administration of U.S. President Donald Trump has responded with interest. But how realistic is that prospect? Would Western investments and joint ventures really come back? The Greek philosopher Heraclitus once famously observed, 'No man ever steps into the same river twice, for it's not the same river, and he's not the same man.' The same could be said of Russia. In the 1990s, following the Soviet Union's collapse, Western businesses poured into the country. Over the next 30 years, these businesses invested hundreds of billions of dollars in Russia, bringing not just capital but also expertise and institutional connections. In many ways, they helped integrate Russia into the global economy. That legacy has been largely erased. On paper, several thousand Western companies still operate in Russia, but most are little more than mailboxes or fronts for Russian business entities. The few remaining Western firms with meaningful operations are effectively trapped: they either cannot exit the market or are being pressured to sell their assets — often at huge losses — to well-connected Russians.
Observer
27-05-2025
- Business
- Observer
Western businesses will not return to Russia
In recent weeks, Russian officials have promoted the idea that once the war in Ukraine ends, Western businesses — particularly American companies — would be welcome to return to Russia. The Trump administration has responded with interest. But how realistic is that prospect? Would Western investments and joint ventures really come back? The Greek philosopher Heraclitus once famously observed, 'No man ever steps into the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man.' The same could be said of Russia. In the 1990s, following the Soviet Union's collapse, Western businesses poured into the country. Over the next 30 years, these businesses invested hundreds of billions of dollars in Russia, bringing not just capital but also expertise and institutional connections. In many ways, they helped integrate Russia into the global economy. That legacy has been largely erased. On paper, several thousand Western companies still operate in Russia, but most are little more than mailboxes or fronts for Russian business entities. The few remaining Western firms with meaningful operations are effectively trapped: they either cannot exit the market or are being pressured to sell their assets — often at huge losses — to well-connected Russians. Consequently, the networks painstakingly built over three decades have unravelled. Russia's financial ties to the West have mostly vanished and Western sanctions are squeezing strategic exports like oil and natural gas. Although trade in commodities and 'dual-use' technologies continues via third-party intermediaries, it lacks the direct hands-on transfer of expertise once provided by Western companies, which was often the true engine of value creation. But even if the war in Ukraine were to end and sanctions were lifted, a return of Western businesses remains highly unlikely. Russia is 'not the same river.' The post-Soviet economic void that Western companies filled in the 1990s and 2000s, following seven decades of isolation and central planning, has since been occupied by Russians. Today, offices in Moscow no longer display the names of Western multinationals, but rather those of their former Russian partners, many of whom were educated in the West or trained by Western professionals. Foreign banks have been replaced by Russian ones, as have businesses across the board, from retail to online services. In these areas, Russia now functions as a fully developed market economy and no longer depends on Western involvement. That said, the war in Ukraine has pushed Russia's economy towards something resembling its Soviet-era self, with an inflated military-industrial complex alongside chronic underinvestment and stagnation in much of the rest. In several industries, particularly manufacturing, Western skills, technologies and capital could still play an important role. The oil industry is a prime example. In the 1990s, Western companies entered Russia in droves, bringing with them a full suite of oilfield services. Using capital and modern management practices, they helped revive declining Soviet-era oil provinces and launched new projects through joint ventures with Russian partners, pioneering new business models for post-Soviet Russia. That experience is unlikely to be repeated. Many Western oil companies are still wounded by their previous forays into Russia and the global oil industry has more attractive opportunities in regions with richer reserves and more business-friendly governments. Perhaps most important, the future of oil itself is uncertain, as major energy firms seek to diversify away from traditional fossil fuels towards petrochemicals and renewables. In this emerging landscape, Russia has little to offer. Another example is the automobile and transportation sectors. Here, too, Western manufacturers rushed into Russia with ambitious plans to modernise its outdated Soviet-era industries. But all of these companies have exited Russia since 2022 — many of them suffering significant losses in the process — and are unlikely to return. The Western transportation industry is undergoing a major transformation. Amidst the transition to electric vehicles and high-speed rail, most companies have neither the appetite nor the means for another Russian adventure. Then there's China. As economic growth there slows, Chinese companies are aggressively ramping up exports, especially to Russia. But rather than investing or facilitating technology transfers, they prefer to ship finished goods. Similarly, Chinese banks are cautious with their capital and the so-called 'yuanisation' of Russia's economy (in which the renminbi displaces the dollar and the euro) has proven to be a poor bargain for Russia, as China — driven by domestic priorities — is actively devaluing its currency. In practice, Russia's much-touted 'no-limits' partnership with China has turned out to be an inadequate substitute for its severed financial ties to the West. Against this backdrop, it is easy to see why Russia would want to launch a charm offensive aimed at luring back Western businesses and investment. But Westerners are unlikely to respond with anything like the missionary zeal of 30 years ago. The once-empty niches left by the collapse of the Soviet economy have now been filled by Russians and Western firms — remembering their previous bitter experiences — are pursuing more promising opportunities elsewhere. It is not the same Russia — and not the same West. Copyright: Project Syndicate, 2025. Thane Gustafson The writer, Professor of Government at Georgetown University, is the author, most recently, of Perfect Storm: Russia's Failed Economic Opening, the Hurricane of War and Sanctions, and the Uncertain Future (Oxford University Press, 2025).
Spectator
27-05-2025
- General
- Spectator
Are rivers really people?
No man treads in the same river twice, wrote Heraclitus in the fifth century BC. No doubt that clever old bird was on to something, but nowadays it seems that we need to be careful about treading in rivers at all. It was reported last week that the River Loddon in Hampshire has been granted legal personhood by a local council, inspired by a document known as the Universal Declaration of the Rights of Rivers. The UDRR, created in 2017, was created by an organisation called the Earth Law Centre, and makes some pretty sweeping claims on behalf of our fluvial comrades, including the 'right to flow', the 'right to feed and be fed by sustainable aquifers', and 'the right to regeneration and restoration'. Drawing on precedents from New Zealand, India and Colombia, it suggests that rivers should be treated as distinct entities in law with their own interests and prerogatives. Some readers will already be rolling their eyes and I confess that was my instinctive response.
