YesSometimes business leaders want more than money: they want to be remembered. He Observer Business Agenda's annual awards column strives to make that happen. Each year we recognize the strangest and most annoying โachievementsโ in the business world so that they can last as long as newsprint and/or web servers last. Here are the lucky winners of 2023.
OpenAI had the world at its feet in the year when everyone from your grandmother to hardened criminals I wanted to understand artificial intelligence. So what better way to celebrate? familiar name status for your ChatGPT bot and an $80 billion valuation from the four-person oversight board that fired CEO Sam Altman for โnot being consistently candid in his communicationsโ โ only to let him return after five days?
To be fair, it wasn't the first U-turn in OpenAI's brief history: the company started as a nonprofit with lofty goals to โoperate for the good of humanityโ, before deciding that, let's operate for the good of shareholders. Microsoft came in as a major investor and crushed it. annoying existential worriesreversing the decision to expel Altman.
The Enron Prize for Financial Innovation
Binance boss Changpeng Zhao (or โCZโ to his followers)โs rise to tech royalty appeared assured in 2023 after the collapse of rival cryptocurrency exchange FTX late last year, a crash. in which he played a key role.
But the crypto news cycle moves faster than the rest of the world. In November, he proclaimed on Platform X: "Bitcoin is the best business model ever invented." A week later, the US Department of Justice politely disagreed, saying Binance had โintentionally violated federal law protecting against money laundering and terrorist financing.โ order him to pay 4.3 billion dollars and prohibit CZ from participating in the management of the business.
The golden Monopoly board
The gold Monopoly board returns for a second year to recognize the most efficient rent extraction. Last year, big companies ripped off anyone who used energy. This year: baby formula!
โCovetousnessโ โ raise prices faster than costs rise โ has been a topic of late, even as economists in the United States and Europe argued over whether it actually existed. (The Bank of England's view was that it was limited to sectors such as energy and retail โ phew!). But one sector managed to stand out from the crowd in 2023: baby formula brands (dominated by Danone and Nestlรฉ) are under investigation by UK competition authorities after managing to raise prices by 25% in two years, increasing profit margins during a cost of living crisis. Tasty.
Rupert Murdoch has etched his name in the annals of media history with a reputation for ruthless but cunning strategy. Executives at its toy Fox News didn't get the memo, allowing the broadcaster's on-screen talent to mercilessly pursue voting systems company Dominion over vote-rigging allegations so spurious they could only have been devised by a certain former president. Unlike the unspecified woke blob or, say, a majority non-white religious minorityBig companies have big, expensive lawyers.
The open and shut defamation case was diverted from court only by a $787.5 million settlement, the largest ever by a media company. Murdoch and his team at Fox were spared the indignity of taking the stand to see how far freedom of expression can go.
Apology of the year
The UK water sector also performed well in the monopoly category, promising to dramatically increase bills while using Britain's rivers for dumping in its most eschatological sense. Thames Water boss Sarah Bentley acknowledged public anger over give up your bonus in Mayonly to return a month later with his salary doubled. A few weeks later, she resigned.
Highly praised: Australian airline Qantas reportedly came up with a convenient way to raise cash after the pandemic turmoil, with a regulator claiming in August that it had sold tickets for flights that would never leave. The flag airline He apologized twice in a month, but clients may be surprised by his argument against the resulting court case. He insisted that โairlines cannot guarantee specific flight times.โ
He Nick Leeson banking excellence award
The private bank Coutts decided in 2023 to cancel Nigel Farage's account after considering his alleged (and flatly denied) โxenophobic, chauvinist and racist opinionsโ, just three decades after the right-winger began his political career. The farrago may have deprived Farage of a fancy bank account, but Alison Rose, chief executive of Coutts's less exclusive owner, NatWest, gave him something much more valuable: the moral authority.
Rose violated client confidentiality by discussing the case with a reporter. She he paid the price for loose lips with his workwhile Farage consoled himself for the invasion of his privacy with a ยฃ1.5m reality TV payday.
Rose shares the award with Credit Suisse leaders. In March, Chairman Axel Lehmann assured investors that the The bank had โsolid capital ratios and a solid balance sheetโ three days before Swiss regulators forced her into a forced marriage with bitter UBS to avoid a full-blown banking crisis.
Where are you now? Updates from previous winners
Bra entrepreneur Michelle Mone wasn't known for her modesty before the pandemic, but reports from the guardian and Observer (and perhaps gentle encouragement from the National Crime Agency) persuaded her to reveal the scope of your public service.
Elon Musk. This year we have: burned down a major social network, alleged (and strongly denied) anti-Semitism, fighting all union members in Scandinavia and his mother scolds Joe Biden.
Sam Bankman-Fried took the stand at his fraud trial. Like the aforementioned FTX, Did not go well.
