Until the mid 2000s the Premier League was dominated by two managers – Arsène Wenger and Sir Alex Ferguson – who collectively won 11 of 12 titles. But their managing styles couldn’t have been more different. Wenger would stay silent for the majority of the half time break, believing that players needed to calm down before they could think and communicate clearly. Meanwhile Ferguson was synonymous with the ‘hairdryer treatment’ – screaming at players, and in one instance kicking a boot at David Beckham’s head.
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In 1974, the three-day week in Britain meant that Saturday became a full working day – limiting attendance at football grounds. Evening matches were a no-go, given clubs were banned from using floodlights. So the only solution was to play matches on Sunday. The idea was initially unpopular – Brian Clough said “if Sunday football comes in, I walk out” – but it 50 years later it is now a permanent fixture of English football.
Football clubs use increasingly complicated statistics to assess performance, such as blocks made and touches in the opposition box. But all the data comes from analysts watching games in real time. They note every event that takes place – capturing over 2000 per game – and spend hours re-watching games to ensure quality control.
Sam Bankman Fried and Elizabeth Holmes are just two of the seemingly cursed winners of Forbes 30 under 30. To be clear, they are very much the exceptions – analysis has shown that only 1% of winners run into legal issues – but it’s still interesting that fraud runs rife among the cream of the crop.
Henry Ford invented the weekend so he could make more money. He made Saturday and Sunday days off for his staff as early as 1926, giving them the opportunity to spend their down time buying his cars.
When Covid-19 effectively banned live concerts, the gaming platform Fortnite designed a beautiful virtual performance within the gameplay itself, recruiting rapper Travis Scott as the headline act. The groundbreaking event was attended by 12 million fans, with over 160 million watching the recording on YouTube.
Francis Mallmann insists on cooking with nothing but fire – using a wood oven rather than electric or propane grills. As cooking with fire is an incredibly slow process, this limitation might seem like an unnecessary delay. But Mallmann’s patience gives the food a uniquely tender and smoky taste.
In the 1930s, when America was recovering from the Great Depression and facing the prospect of joining a World War, President Roosevelt created an unconventional communication method. Rather than making big speeches, he used weekly radio broadcasts known as ‘Fireside Chats’, where he explained his policies to ordinary people in their language – using simple words and concrete examples. 80% of the words used were in the thousand most commonly used words in the English language.
The power of scarcity was known back in the 18th century. After farmers rejected Frederick the Great’s proposal to grow more potatoes, he planted a royal field with potato plants and ordered his guards to protect them. Before long, peasants started stealing these ‘royal potatoes’ and growing them in secret.
Most people don’t think of Singapore as particularly free: laws are draconian, spitting is a fineable offence, and drug smugglers are executed. But to many locals, the strict laws is exactly what makes it freedom. “Freedom is being able to walk on the streets unmolested in the wee hours in the morning. Freedom is fresh air and clean streets, because nothing is more inimical to our liberty of movement than being trapped at home because of suffocating smog.”
France has over twice as many companies with 49 staff as with 50. Why? At 50 employees, companies are must abide by a range of regulations including mandatory works councils and more stringent dismissal procedures.
Gail’s’ distribution is focused on neighbourhood spots with above average income. As co-founder Tom Molnar says, “we’re not in places like Oxford Street as we’re not trying to get people through the till really fast.” In fact this focus on affluence has been so successful that the Lib Dems used it as a tool in their 2024 election strategy; aggressively targeting towns outside London with a Gail’s, and winning a record 72 seats as a result.
The term ‘gaslighting’ comes from the 1938 British play Gas Light, which was adapted into a film in 1944. It tells the story of a husband who manipulates his wife into thinking she is insane; dimming and brightening the gas lights in their home when she is alone.
If you want to reduce it, target the superusers. The top 10 percent of US motorists drive 30,000 miles or more a year and use an estimated 32 percent of all gasoline – more than the bottom 60 percent of US drivers combined.
Half the world’s GDP comes from 4% of its land mass.