Informed i’s Weekly Business Insights

One day last October, sitting in the courtyard of his house in China’s Henan province, Dong Hui decided to   see if he could hold a pen to write.  Dong, 39, had sustained spinal cord injuries in a car accident six years earlier that left him paralyzed from the neck down. Slowly but determinedly, he wrote his name, “Thank you,” and then the date. This was the result of an 11-month-long rehabilitation enabled by an implant in his brain. Before that process, Dong could move his arms slightly but wasn’t able to use his fingers.

In November 2024, Dong became one of the first people in China to be given an invasive brain-computer interface (BCI) through brain surgery. He had signed up for a clinical trial with the device’s developer one month after seeing on TV how a BCI had apparently enabled another paralyzed Chinese man to hold his granddaughter.  This March, the implant Dong uses became the first invasive BCI product in the world to be approved for use beyond clinical trials. It’s now available to some patients with paralysis in their limbs due to spinal cord injuries.

Dong’s brain implant is a coin-size device called NEO. It was developed by Neuracle Technology, a Shanghai-based startup, together with researchers at Tsinghua University in Beijing.  During a procedure that took just over an hour and a half, the device’s sensors, which collect Dong’s brain signals, were placed on his dura mater, the tough outer layer of tissue that covers and protects the brain. The signals are transmitted to a computer by an implant placed on Dong’s skull. The computer then translates the signals into commands for a soft robotic glove Dong wears during the 2.5-hour training sessions he completes each day to help him learn to grab. 

Dong started his rehabilitation around a week after surgery. “On the ninth day of my training, my right hand successfully grabbed a ball without the glove,” he says. “That was a miraculous moment.”   Now he continues with his training at home. He wants to be able to control his hands better in order to put on clothes, eat, and do other daily tasks without troubling his aging parents. 

A growing number of people with traumatic injuries in China are now poised to tread a similar path thanks to NEO’s recent approval. According to China’s National Medical Products Administration, the bureau responsible for drug supervision, the product is suitable for patients between 18 and 60 who have paralysis in all limbs due to spinal cord injuries but still have some residual function in their arms. 

NEO beat several other BCIs to approval, including one from Neuralink, a California-based company founded by Elon Musk.

Days after NEO was approved, China started incorporating it into the country’s health insurance system by assigning it a unique code. This is one of the first steps toward a future where eligible Chinese patients pay a certain percentage of the BCI’s price if they need it during their treatment.

The growth of China’s BCI industry is expected to accelerate thanks to the government’s policy support and financial backing. The country’s latest five-year plan, published on the same day Neuracle received its approval, lists BCI as one of six key industries important to China’s future tech competitiveness, alongside quantum technology, humanoid robots, and others. Several Chinese startups, including NeuroXess and StairMed, have already worked in the field for many years.

NEO has become the world’s first invasive BCI to go commercial, but scientists interviewed by MIT Technology Review caution against comparing Chinese and US efforts through the lens of a race.

Science-based ecotourism has traditionally been a more rugged affair, often involving backpacks, hammocks, and sturdy hiking boots. Lately, the sector has attracted a different kind of well-to-do do-gooder: As the pandemic and climate crisis have turbocharged a don’t-delay mentality among eco-curious travelers, high-end adventure companies have found themselves busy.

If you drew a Venn diagram with circles for absurd luxury, rarefied access, scientific enlightenment, and philanthropic conservation, EYOS Expeditions, charterer of the 187-foot Solace, would occupy the intersection. “People that travel with us are inherently curious about the world,” CEO Ben Lyons told the author over dinner the night before their Dominica expedition. (The experience and yacht are offered at $395,000 per week) “Given the incredibly fortunate positions our clients find themselves in, they want to do something to give back.”

The kind of experience these companies curate manages to be sumptuously luxe and transformatively meaningful—and offers plenty of swashbuckling tales to tell. But it is not the kind of vainglorious folly that sends celebrities into space or ends up with a submersible imploding on the seafloor. Instead, it could be a naturalist-led meet-and-greet with resident giant tortoises at the Waldorf Astoria Platte Island in the Seychelles, or a research expedition with polar scientists aboard Ponant’s luxe icebreaker.

At Islas Secas, a Panamanian private-island resort that hosts speakers from National Geographic and the National Audubon Society, the author met Henry Cookson of Cookson Adventures, an OG operator in this space that plans trips starting at $200,000. He sent a group of clients to participate in the translocation of 14 rhinos with the Kenya Wildlife Service. “You’re in the thick of it: the dust, the smell, the urgency,” he said. “Everyone has a role, from being in the helicopter with the sharpshooter to pouring water over the rhino’s head to keep it cool.” It’s a far cry from passively observing wildlife from a safari Jeep, he said: “The ultimate bragging right is putting a thermometer up a rhino’s ass.”

It would be naive to ignore the tension between conservation and conspicuous consumption, and companies have tried to reckon with that thorny issue. Cookson calculates carbon offset into its pricing, and London outfitter Journeys With Purpose (JWP), which is taking a group to Norway in July in partnership with Polar Bears International, includes a mandatory, percentage-based donation to conservation efforts. Many clients on JWP’s trips—which start at $17,000 per person—donate more.

The idea behind this kind of tourism is that it can help fund conservation, while inspiring wealthy and powerful people to deepen their engagement in environmental activism.  What these companies offer are high-access, singular experiences that would be hard to replicate. A close encounter with a sperm whale, for example, could never be offered in mass-market tourism. Dominica has designated 300 square miles of marine reserve as off-limits to humans, and leaves open the slimmest keyhole for tourists to swim with the mammals. A tightly regulated permit costs 16,000 Eastern Caribbean dollars (currently $5,900) for a maximum of three swimmers, with a guide.

After several years of intense geopolitical volatility, it’s clear that multinational corporations (MNCs) have entered a new era. Growing regional realignments and shifting trade dynamics are forcing CEOs across industries to rethink their global strategies.

As geopolitics transforms the business environment, MNCs that understand the dynamics and reshape their production footprints, capital allocation, and operating models will be best positioned to thrive . While each company’s moves will depend on its circumstances, five actions offer opportunity for value creation.

1. Identify priority trade corridors and growth pockets.  Trade realignments present numerous opportunities for companies to enter new markets and tap into growing trade routes. CEOs can take the following steps:  Prioritize trade corridors.  Tap pockets of geopolitically driven growth.  Reduce revenue concentration in risky corridors and markets.  And create playbooks for rapid market entry.
2. Deploy capital strategically.  In the past, organizations established manufacturing footprints largely to ensure just-in-time supply. Today, preserving optionality and leveraging industrial incentives are more important considerations. Leading companies are taking the following steps:  Place manufacturing in resilient locations or maintain agility.  And access relevant industrial incentives.  
3. Strengthen operational resilience.  Maintaining global operations can be a considerable competitive advantage, enabling organizations to swiftly reconfigure supply and product volumes when disruptions occur. However, a global footprint also exposes companies to geopolitical risks. The following actions can help leaders develop operational resilience:  Assess and diversify supplier networks.  Build flexibility into workforce models.  And optimize data and technology stacks regionally.
4. Expand organizational agility and foresight.  Agility can boost a company’s ability to capture growth opportunities while reducing risk from exposure to geopolitically distant markets. By planning, thinking through contingencies, and exploring scenarios, businesses can develop strategic foresight that can enhance their agility. Leaders can start by making the following moves:  Institutionalize measurement of geopolitical exposure.  Refine legal entity structures.  Rethink the role of the corporate center.  Clarify decision rights.  Train leaders on the business impact of geopolitics.  Establish internal geopolitical units.  And create crisis playbooks and triggers for risk mitigation actions.
5. Manage near-term earnings exposure to geopolitics.  New tariffs, pricing disruptions, or increases in cross-border transaction costs usually require quick action to protect quarterly earnings. Strong balance sheets and access to capital are also necessary for companies to absorb geopolitical shocks and seize opportunities—shifting supply, establishing inventory buffers, or reallocating capital as needed. The following actions can help businesses achieve those goals:  Mitigate tariff costs.  Align pricing with geopolitical impact relative to peers.  And strengthen currency management.

Geopolitical disruption is no longer transitory—it is structural. As Iván Duque Márquez, former president of Colombia and a member of McKinsey’s GAC, advises, “CEOs should now challenge their assumptions on a permanent basis.” And while global trade is not slowing, its growth is volatile and concentrated in specific trade corridors. CEOs who recognize the opportunities in today’s geopolitical realignment—and adapt their capital allocation, growth strategies, supply chains, financial and legal structures, and operating and technology models accordingly—can create leading global institutions in the new trade era.

Too much change, too soon, with too little attention to the people living through it – the leaders who navigate this well focus on one thing: managing how their people experience it.

Right now, multiple forces are driving change, including mergers and restructurings, economic volatility, geopolitical instability, and AI technology. Employees and leaders are feeling all of it. Eighty-three percent of business leaders are experiencing more major change than ever before.  Employees can realistically absorb only one or two major changes per year, yet some leaders plan to have three or four. Meanwhile, though nearly all business leaders believe that they communicate change well, we found that 1 in 4 employees say they disagree or are not sure.

Three leadership disciplines make the difference in helping teams analyze and handle change.

1. Make Dialogue Nonnegotiable.  Dialogue is one thing many leaders cut back on during periods of change. It takes time and effort, both of which feel scarce in the middle of transformation. Leaders default to what feels efficient. They craft the message, send it out, and move on.  Making dialogue nonnegotiable starts with listening before taking action and then treating feedback as strategic input. When leaders respond to what they hear and adjust course visibly, people follow.  But leaders also need to close the loop. They won’t be able to use every idea. But employees deserve a response, whether that means moving forward with an idea, modifying it, or saying no and explaining why. Go silent, and they’ll draw their own conclusions, which often leads to quiet resistance that shows up later as disengagement, burnout, or failure.  But change is emotional, not just operational. The people closest to the work have perspectives on what’s going well and what isn’t. When they don’t feel consulted, they go quiet, and leaders lose the very information they need most.
2. Align on a Change Narrative.  Dialogue with employees works only if leaders are all telling the same story. Many aren’t.  Leadership teams routinely underestimate how much time they need to spend getting aligned before communicating with the rest of the organization. In most of the cases, each leader tells the story their own way, and employees are left to make sense of a fragmented message on their own.  Before communicating change to the organization, leaders need to answer four questions as a team: Where have we been? Where are we today? Where are we going? And what does it take to win? When leaders skip this step of developing a shared change narrative, employees fill in the gaps — and they rarely fill them in favorably, often defaulting to confusion, skepticism, and ultimately disengagement.
3. Sequence Change With People’s Capacity in Mind.  Most organizations don’t fail at change because they’re doing too much. They fail because they’re doing too much at the same time, without discipline. Leaders evaluate changes individually and then tell themselves that each one can’t wait. But employees don’t have that luxury. They absorb the changes all at once.  When leaders don’t manage the pace and volume of change, the effect on employees is relentless.  The lesson isn’t that leaders should do less. It’s that protecting your people’s capacity is as important as protecting the business. When initiatives overlap without sequencing, change stops feeling strategic and starts feeling chaotic.

Before Li was born, his grandmother predicted that he would bring fortune to their family—and as a teenager he did, earning Chinese state sponsorship for his martial-arts career and winning five consecutive national championships. In his twenties he became an action movie star, popular with fans across Asia and then around the world. After surviving the 2004 tsunami in the Maldives, he launched one of China’s first charitable foundations and deepened his study of Buddhism. His new memoir is Beyond Life and Death.  The following are a few of the important takeaways from his interview with the author.

When he was two years old, his father passed away. After that, his mother worked hard to take care of the family, but they were still very poor, so he knew he also had to work very hard and always try his best. At eight he started learning martial arts, and his teachers chose him to continue.  Talent, learning curiosity and working smart made him stand out as a martial artist.

He even competed against his teachers. According to Li, with any performance, you can show your personality as well as your movement. You can be polite and humble and nice. When you do all that, even the people you beat are still happy. It’s the same in acting. A lot of people want to be actors, but the audience likes the ones who have something special inside.  According to him, you can compete only against yourself to do better and better. A lot of people go the wrong way, chasing others. So go your own way.

At 16 he already had one of the highest salaries in the country. So he asked himself, How do I work harder, be more famous, and get more money? That was his thinking then. After the trip to America, on the way back to China he passed through Hong Kong. A movie company boss asked, “Do you want to be an action star?” he said, “Why not?”

The first thing is to show up on time. Lots of famous actors might show up for a 7 AM meeting at 7:30. But he is always on time because in his martial-arts training, if he wasn’t, he was punished. The second thing he learned at a young age is that just because you’re a champion this year doesn’t mean you’ll be one the next.  Every competition, you need to restart and try harder.  So you can’t get lazy. You can’t think you’re special. You have to work seriously every time, and then the team will follow you.  Complaining, yelling, being angry doesn’t help. If you don’t have loss, you won’t appreciate success.

Giving back to society was the second part of his life, which he called “big Jet” or “big self” because he was no longer working for himself but working to help others.  Yes, governments, rich people, and big companies all have a responsibility. But as a citizen of the world, you also have a small one—maybe it’s giving 12 cents a month or volunteering. You can start there and grow.

From observation, you don’t understand the whole picture. Everybody is unique, with their own love, power, wisdom, and journey. You need to respect yourself and discover yourself.

The strongest workplace relationships aren’t built on charm or charisma. They form when daily habits and consistent behaviors make employees feel their leaders and teammates are reliable, safe people to work with. This is good news for professionals who don’t find networking or “small talk” particularly easy. It means relationship-building is not a natural trait that can’t be learned, but a skill anyone can practice and master.

Seemingly minor actions that may not feel dramatic at the time build trust, slowly and without fanfare. Below, members of Forbes Coaches Council share tips for strengthening relationships at work, exploring how and why fostering these habits can impact both individual career growth and organizational performance in the long run.

1. Prioritize Generosity In Everyday Collaboration.  Be a giver, not a taker. People are more drawn to you when they see that you genuinely want to help them. Prioritize generosity. Fill in for a colleague who can’t make a client meeting and share your notes afterward. Share knowledge that isn’t easily accessible. Volunteer to take on a task that would make someone’s life easier. Giving without expecting immediate returns builds goodwill and trust.
2. Adapt Communication To Speak Others’ Language.  Understanding DISC profiles could transform workspace relationships. When you know whether someone is dominant, influential, steady or conscientious, you stop projecting your style onto them and start speaking their language. This creates instant trust, reduces conflict and builds genuine synergy. It is the single most powerful tool for turning a group of people into a high-performing team.
3. Invite Colleagues Into Unfinished Problem-Solving.  Try inviting a colleague to help with a real problem before you have a finished answer. Ask, “Here is what I am trying to solve. What am I missing?” That small act does two things: It shows respect for their judgment, and it creates shared ownership. People build trust faster when they are not just included socially but treated as valuable partners in the work.
4. Continue Conversations After Meetings End.  The strongest relationships are built after the meeting. Find the person who stopped mid-sentence and ask, “What were you about to say?” Then listen. It signals something rare: They don’t need to be polished around you. That’s where trust begins.
5. Show Up For Teammates Through Helpful Actions.  Building relationships is never a solo effort. It’s a two-way street that starts with how you show up for others. Start by asking, “How can I help you?” It shows your support and gives you ideas on how you can actually help your teammates to succeed. People remember those who make their work easier. Over time, small acts of support build trust, openness and stronger working relationships.

The others are:  Show Curiosity With Questions, Then Listen; Reflect Back What You Hear From Colleagues To Them; Create Repeatable Moments Of Connection; Seek Cross-Functional Insights From Colleagues;  Leverage Colleagues’ Skills And Ask For Guidance; Give People Recognition Without Hidden Agendas; Identify And Highlight Individuals’ Strengths By Name; and Encourage Open Dialogue Through Safe Meetings.

Before you finalize the deal, there are a handful of conversations every partnership needs to have. They aren’t always comfortable, but answering them early can save a lot of stress later. Taking the time to answer these seven questions won’t eliminate every challenge. However, it will create clarity, align expectations, and help you and your partner build a stronger foundation.   

Why are you doing this together?  At first glance, the answer seems obvious. You’re launching a company or pursuing an opportunity, but the deeper motivation matters more than most people realize. One partner might be chasing financial upside while the other is motivated by flexibility or purpose.  Neither is wrong, but misalignment creates tension. Partnerships work best when both people understand what the other truly wants out of the journey.

What does success look like for each of you?  Success is one of those words everyone assumes means the same thing—until it doesn’t. For one partner, it may mean scaling quickly and selling. For another, it could mean building a stable, long-term business. If those visions aren’t discussed, partners may start rowing in different directions. Clarity here ensures decisions move the business toward a shared destination.

Who is responsible for what?  In the early days, roles often feel fluid. That works for a while, but as the business grows, lack of clarity becomes friction. When two people think they own the same decisions—or neither does—things fall through the cracks. Healthy partnerships define ownership, so each person knows where their leadership begins and ends.

How will you make decisions when you disagree?  Every partnership encounters disagreement. The issue isn’t whether or not it will happen, but what happens next. Some partnerships debate endlessly. Others rely on one partner to break ties, and some divide decision authority.  There’s no single right approach, but the process should be clear before a major decision is on the table.

How will you communicate when something isn’t working?  This may be the most important question, and the one most often avoided. Early on, communication feels constant. Over time, frustrations can build quietly. If partners don’t have a shared way to raise concerns, those issues stay buried until they become much bigger problems. Strong partnerships create space for honest conversations, even when they’re uncomfortable.

What happens if one of you wants out?  No one starts a partnership expecting it to end, but priorities change. One partner may want to pursue something new or step away from day-to-day operations. Thinking through exit scenarios early doesn’t mean you expect them. It means you’re prepared.  Discussing buyouts or transitions ahead of time prevents rushed, emotional decisions later.

How will you protect the relationship itself?  Business partnerships combine professional collaboration with personal trust. The success of the company often depends on that relationship. Protecting it should be intentional. Some partners schedule regular check-ins. Others build simple habits that encourage transparency.   The specifics vary, but the principle is the same: The relationship requires ongoing attention. When people think about launching a company, they focus on the opportunity, the product, or the numbers. Those things matter. However, in a partnership, the relationship shapes nearly every outcome.

Everyone loves the clean version of entrepreneurship. The founder spots a perfect opportunity, builds a strategy, raises money and executes against a master plan that works exactly as expected.  That story sounds great in interviews. The reality is usually much messier.  A surprising number of great companies were not born from some massive vision. They came from frustration, side projects, failed ideas or founders solving problems directly in front of them.  The uncomfortable truth about entrepreneurship is that many great businesses are discovered rather than invented.  That distinction matters.

Discovery means the founder did not fully know what they were building at first. They experimented, paid attention to what people responded to and uncovered where the real value existed.  Some of the largest modern companies started exactly that way.

Airbnb: A temporary solution that became a giant.  Airbnb did not begin as an ambitious attempt to reinvent hospitality. It started because the founders were struggling to pay rent.  During a crowded design conference in San Francisco, hotels were fully booked, and Brian Chesky and Joe Gebbia realized there might be an opportunity sitting inside their apartment. They bought air mattresses, offered guests a place to sleep, included breakfast and created a simple website to make the arrangement feel legitimate.  The founders recognized that people were willing to trade the predictability of hotels for experiences that felt more affordable, flexible and personal. More importantly, they understood that trust on the internet could be engineered through design, reviews, photography and user behavior.  That insight became the foundation of a company that fundamentally changed global travel.

Slack: The company hidden inside a failure.  Slack is one of the clearest examples of accidental discovery in modern business.  The founders were originally building an online game through a company called Tiny Speck. Like many startups, the company had a vision, a roadmap and strong conviction about what it wanted to become.  The problem was that the game was not working. User growth was disappointing, traction was limited, and the business itself was struggling to justify its existence.  But inside the company, the team had built an internal messaging platform to coordinate communication between employees. That tool turned out to be exceptionally effective. It reduced friction, organized conversations cleanly and solved collaboration problems in a way existing workplace software did not.  Eventually, the founders faced a difficult realization: The tool they built to support the company was more valuable than the company itself.

Shopify: Built by founders frustrated with existing tools.  Shopify also emerged from frustration rather than long-term strategic planning.  The founders were attempting to sell snowboarding equipment online, but the ecommerce tools available at the time were deeply limiting. Existing platforms were difficult to customize, technically frustrating and not designed with entrepreneurs in mind.  So instead of waiting for someone else to build a better solution, they created one themselves.  Initially, the software existed purely to support their own business. But over time, the founders recognized something larger happening beneath the surface.  The problem they were experiencing was not unique.  Millions of entrepreneurs wanted to build online businesses without fighting complicated software infrastructure every step of the way.  That realization transformed Shopify from an internal utility into a platform that reshaped modern ecommerce.

The pattern behind “accidental” companies.  What connects companies like Airbnb, Slack and Shopify is not luck. It is responsiveness.  None of these founders began with perfect certainty. Instead, they paid attention carefully enough to notice where value was naturally emerging.  A lot of aspiring founders spend years searching for a billion-dollar idea while ignoring the smaller problems directly in front of them. They believe successful businesses must originate from some profound flash of genius.  But in practice, many transformative companies begin with ordinary frustrations.  Something feels broken.  Something feels inefficient.  Something important does not exist yet.  The founder builds a solution for themselves and eventually discovers that countless other people need the exact same thing.  That closeness to the problem creates clarity. And clarity is often far more valuable than theoretical innovation.  

Entrepreneurship is usually a process of discovery.  One of the biggest misconceptions about startups is the belief that founders are supposed to know exactly where they are going from the beginning.  Most do not.  The early stages of building a company are often defined by uncertainty, wrong assumptions and constant adjustment. The founders who survive are rarely the ones with the most polished plans. They are the ones capable of learning the fastest.