Portfolio October 2015

The business of life & living

ISSUE

118

THE BOOKER PRIZE

STEVE WOZNIAK

How much does it boost sales?

The real hero of the Steve Jobs biopic

FUTURE SMART CITIES

GOING UNDERGROUND

Why the people need to decide

How London is reclaiming The Tube

KEVIN SYSTROM The man who turned Instagram into a $35 billion company

WWW.DAMASJEWELLERY.COM CALL 800 DAMAS(32627) WITHIN THE UAE

OCTOBER issuE 118

contents upfrOnt

10

greek sALe

The buying of Greek islands is getting cheaper

17

Design

The house in Spain that’s set to be a design classic

18

mOst wAnteD

Because you deserve your own submarine

Living

75

investment piece

21

The world’s warmest jacket

Why bitcoin is now being taken seriously

by Wall Street

five tips frOm A ceO

mOney

24

AreA wAtcH

Mitte in Berlin has gone from an East/ West hybrid to the most desirable area

30

prOperty

The house designed

by Bugatti

33

cArs

81

A few pointers from the boss

83

tOp tAbLe

Deconstructed dish at one of Australia’s best restaurants

85

tHe best restAurAnt

Chef Gary Rhodes on the best place he’s ever eaten

87

stAy

The star’s villa that you can hire for your next break

The new Range Rover Sentinel.

Stylish and bulletproof

Published for Emirates by

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Emirates takes care to ensure that all facts published herein are correct. In the event of any inaccuracy please contact the editor. Any opinion expressed is the honest belief of the author based on all available facts. Comments and facts should not be relied upon by the reader in taking commercial, legal, financial or other decisions. Articles are by their nature general and specialist advice should always be consulted before any actions are taken.

All dollar prices throughout the magazine refer to US dollars.

Portfolio.

OCTOBER issue 118

contents FEATUREs

34

wHO sHAPEs OUR FUTURE?

Why in the cities of the future, the people, not corporations, need to have a say

42

GOING UNDERGROUND

How London is turning disused Tube stations into investment opportunities

51

sTEvE wOzNIAk

Why he is the real hero of this month’s Steve Jobs biopic

58

INsTAGRAM

The man who turned photos of lattes into a company valued at $35 billion

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Obaid Humaid al Tayer MANAGING PARTNER & GROUP EDITOR ian Fairservice EDITORIAL DIRECTOR Gina JOHnsOn GROUP EDITOR mark evans marke@motivate.ae EDITOR maTTHew POmrOy matthew.pomroy@motivate.ae sENIOR ART DIRECTOR sara raFaGHellO sarar@motivate.ae sENIOR DEsIGNER rOui FranciscO rom@motivate.ae sUb-EDITOR salil kumar salil@motivate.ae PICTURE REsEARCHER arTi saundalkar aarti@motivate.ae EDITORIAL AssIsTANT lOndresa FlOres londresa@motivate.ae GENERAL MANAGER – PRODUCTION sunil kumar sunil@motivate.ae PRODUCTION MANAGER r. murali krisHnan muralik@motivate.ae PRODUCTION sUPERvIsOR veniTa PinTO venita@motivate.ae CHIEF COMMERCIAL OFFICER anTHOny milne anthony@motivate.ae GROUP sALEs DIRECTOR craiG waGsTaFF craig.wagstaff@motivate.ae INTERNATIONAL sALEs MANAGER martin balmer martin.balmer@motivate.ae GROUP sALEs MANAGER Jaya balakrishnan jaya@motivate.ae sENIOR sALEs MANAGER michael underdown michael@motivate.ae

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Portfolio.

29,265 copies July - December 2014

upfront

portfolio.

feature name

10

Portfolio.

october upfront / islands

issue 118

islands | greece

For sale

Cristiano Ronaldo bought his agent a Greek island as a wedding present. So can you really buy your own piece of Greece?

W

hen Dubai launched its World project, it released bare plots of sand that together make up a map of the world. The Belgian, Baron Jean van Gysel de Meise paid a reported $20 million for ‘Greece’. For a quarter of the price he could have bought an actual Greek island. His plot of sand in Dubai remains untouched.

The real thing, however, is becoming a popular investment for those who can afford it – and with Greece’s current woes, the prices are falling.

Following Greece’s first ever tax on real estate, introduced last year in the face of demands from creditors, it’s becoming increasingly expensive for owners to hold on to their islands. Partly as a result, prices to buy are down by as much as 30 per cent on pre-crisis levels.

The islands available are privately owned, and there is currently no sign of Greece selling off state-owned land. This despite calls from senior members of Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats to explore the option of selling these assets to help clear debt.

6,000

Estimated number of Greek islands in existence



30%

Fall in price of the islands compared to pre-crisis levels

“Those in insolvency have to sell everything they have to pay their creditors,” Josef Schlarmann told German tabloid Bild. “Greece owns buildings, companies and uninhabited islands, which could well be used for debt redemption.”

Greek sovereign land includes as many as 6,000 islands and islets scattered in the Aegean and Ionian Seas, of which only 227 are currently inhabited.

Just 10 per cent of those islands are privately owned and it’s these plots of land that are being bought up by the likes of millionaire footballers, Russian oligarchs and Middle Eastern emirs.

But as prices fall, the possibility of turning islands into high-end mini-resorts becomes increasingly feasable with investment groups now being targeted as well as the billionaire set. Greece may never countenence the idea of selling land to clear debts, but among private sales, the trade could potentially turn this part of southern Europe into an Ionian Maldives with boutique hotels and retreats.

Portfolio.

11

OCTOBER ISSUE 118

UPFRONT / ISLANDS

On the market...

Omfori Price: $62m Size: 1,112 acres Currently, there’s one small building on the island with permissions in place to built on 20 per cent of the island (more if it is deemed to be a good investment in the area).

More: privateislandsonline.com

Gaia Price: $4.6m Size: 43 acres Part of the Echinades, among the Ionian Islands just off the western Greek seaboard.

The agency representing the island say there’s approval to build six villas and permission to subdivide into six plots.

The Isle of Gaia has clear ownership papers – a clean company-owned Island.

More: privateislandsonline.com

Trinity Island Price: POA Size: 12 acres Owned by the family of the former Keeper of the Royal Privy Purse of the three Kings of Greece since 1958. Winston Churchill and the Beatles are among those to have been entertained as guests here. It can be reached in just 10 minutes from Athens by helicopter.

More: vladi-private-islands.de

Nissos Sofia Price: $3.4m Size: 43.5 acres

12

An official archaeological report has been created and an application for permission to build six homes (80 square metres each) has already been submitted to the relevant authorities and is pending approval.

More: vladi-private-islands.de

PORTFOLIO.

Nissos Makri Price: POA Size: 245 acres In the Ionian Islands group, the selling agents say it has been granted special planning/ building regulations. Under full development, a five-star suites hotel and luxurious private villas could be built.

More: privateislandsonline.com

OCTOBER ISSUE 118

UPFRONT / BOOKS

The Booker Prize effect How just a nomination for the initial longlist can result in a huge boost in book sales

1st Anuradha Roy

2nd 3rd 4th 5th 6th

Sunjeev Sahota

1,345%

324%

30%

416%

64%

132%

153%

433%

1,467%

20%

292%

8/1

20/1

7/1

7/1

8/1

5/1

4/1

14/1

6/1

14/1

6/1

12/1

12th

Tom McCarthy

Hanya Yanagihara

Marilynne Robinson

Anne Enright

Marlon James

11th

9th

Laila Lalami

194%

Chigozie Obioma

10th

Anne Tyler

8th

Andrew O’Hagan

Anna Smaill

7th

Increase in sales in the two weeks after making the Booker Prize longlist compared to the fortnight prior to the announcement.

A

Fravouite to win

ccording to the judges of the Man Booker Prize, their remit is to simply pick the best novel of the year written in the English language. But to be nominated can make a career or, in the case of writers who are already established, give them a huge sales boost. We asked Nielsen Book Research to look at the sales figures in the fortnight before, and after, the longlist was announced and how that afffected 12 of the 13 books. Did You Ever Have A Family by Bill Clegg is not due for publication until September. The average boost simply for being nominated is 87 per cent but some writers fared extremely well. Sales of Anuradha Roy’s book Sleeping On Jupiter saw sales increase by 1,467 per cent. The comparativly modest 20 per cent increase for Ann Tyler’s A Spool Of Blue Thread is largely down to the fact it was selling notably well already following positive reviews.

Likewise for Hanya Yanagihara’s A Little Life, which is the favourite to win. The winner is announced on the 13th of this month, but you don’t have to win the Booker Prize to be a winner, just making the longlist has a huge effect.

PORTFOLIO.

15

october issue 118

upfront / design

JellyfIsh house

by Wiel Arets Architects

MADRID

Marbella

home | spain

The Jellyfish House A design that is set to be one of the classics of this era

I

t’s set to be one of the classic pieces of architecture and design of our era. Named Jellyfish House, this three-storey concrete residence in Marbella, Spain, was designed by Wiel Arets Architects, an Amsterdam-, Maastricht-, and Zurich-based multidisciplinary architecture and design practice. A summer home for a Dutch family, the story goes that the owners wanted a jellyfish tank, but the architects created a structure that would allow people in the swimming pool to be seen from not only the entrance, but from the kitchen as well. There, from the non-swimmers perspective you can watch the people floating in the

pool like jellyfish. The architects are a little more prosaic and say the house’s neighbouring buildings block its view of the nearby sea so they decided to cantilever the house’s pool from its roof, so the beach and sea can always be seen while sunbathing or swimming. With an infinity-edge, its water merges with the sea in the distance. To support the weight the house was built entirely of concrete, and the windows on the bottom of the pool reflect light into the house and down to the entrance. We like the human jellyfish story better, but either way it’s further proof that modern design can be practical and creative.

60,000kg Weight of cantilevered rooftop pool, which holds up to 34,342 gallons of water

Portfolio.

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OCTOBER ISSUE 118

UPFRONT / MOST WANTED

This month...

1

U-BOAT WORX C-RESEARCHER 3 SUBMARINE It’s the world’s first transparent three-person sub capable of diving to 1,700 metres, and there’s currrently no better way to see the depths.

With a combination of safety, high performance, ultra-wide field of vision and comfort it’s surely a matter of time before an enterprising company uses these for tourist trips or personal use. And the fact it’s been designed for deployment off the back of large yachts suggests the makers are looking at a market beyond scientific exploration or industrial. Price to be announced. uboatworx.com

2

18

3

ACER REVO BUILD SERIES (M1-601) MINI PC

ROY LICHTENSTEIN’S HOTDOG ARTWORK

The new Revo Build Series uses a modular approach to let you customise your computer with blocks providing different features. The blocks are connected through pogo pins with magnetic alignment so you can swap modules. Blocks include a 500GB/1TB portable hard drive, a power bank for wireless charging, an audio block with speakers. Other expansion blocks will be rolled out gradually. Prices start at $222.

Lichtenstein is “the next real thing” in the contemporary Art market, according to experts, including art magazine The Art Wolf. The likes of Pollock, de Kooning, Bacon, Warhol, Johns and Rothko are now the artists whose works can be sold for more than $70 million and the feeling is that Lichtenstein will soon be added to that group. This work from 1964 is a porcelain enamel on steel, signed and numbered – four from an edition of ten. Available as part of the Contemporary Art Day Auction at Sotheby’s in London on October 6, it’s expected to go for between $336,000 and $430,000.

PORTFOLIO.

WHY ARE WHITE TRUFFLES SO EXPENSIVE? In late 2004, a 4.16-pound white truffle was sold at Sotheby’s for $61,250 to a phone bidder in China. Then in 2009 a 1.6-pound white truffle sold for $150,000. White truffles are increasingly in demand, but are rare and getting rarer with harvests of good quality truffles decreasing compared to a decade ago. Global warming and fungicides getting into the soil have contributed, but the truffles cannot be faked or cultivated. They are only avaialbe in truffle season (from this month) in a few places on Earth. Few things are as hard to get hold of, and nothing else tastes quite like them.

In a top restaurant, with a little shaved over your food is the prefered way to have some white trufffle. Try it while you can.

Subs, a modular PC and Pop Art

october issue 118

upfront / Money

W

hen bitcoin started taking off, really taking off, in 2012 and 2013, the thought was that it would be embraced by the general populace, and put the banks out of business.

As bitcoin approaches its seventh birthday, a very different scenario is playing out. The general population may have got bored or scared off by bitcoin, but the banks are completely embracing it.

The biggest story in bitcoin in 2015 has been the global financial industry getting serious about digital currencies and the systems behind them. Virtually every bank on Wall Street has taken an interest in it.

If they’re not setting up their own ‘skunk works’ teams to fiddle with it, they’re investing in startups. Toedipping more than diving headfirst.

But the interest is serious. If it all works ‒ and keep in mind this is all still more potential than payoff ‒ it could fundamentally alter the world’s financial plumbing.

currency | wall street

The next level for bitcoin

Why Wall Street is embracing the crypto-currency. Words: Paul Vigna

$1,216

The value per coin at the November 2013 peak

Feb 2011 Bitcoin takes parity with US dollar.

Bitcoin is a computer program, run by a decentralised network of computers that allows two people, anywhere on the planet, to exchange value instantly and nearly without cost. Every transaction is recorded in a public ledger called the blockchain.

Having every transaction traceable prevents counterfeiting, and makes the system ‘trustless,’ meaning there’s no need for a third party ‒ a bank or some other financial institution ‒ to mediate. Having it run on a decentralised system means there is no one point of failure (phishing attacks on individual accounts are a different story). Also and importantly,

the software is open source; anybody is welcome to take the code, modify it, and create their own version of it.

Bitcoin operates instantly and cheaply, and that is something the current systems do not do. Buying an airline ticket, for example, seems fast. Equities exchanges operate in nanoseconds, and trade billions of shares a day. The transaction happens in an instant. The settlement, though, takes days. Credit-card transactions and stock purchases are routed through a byzantine network of counterparties, clearing houses, and custodians. The cost runs into the tens of billions.

Portfolio.

21

OCTOBER

22

THE END OF MONEY TRANSFER FEES? Remittances — chiefly payments sent by foreign workers to relatives back home — is an immense global industry. Over $583 billion was remitted globally in 2014, according to the World Bank. Banks and companes like Western Union and MoneyGram make a lot of money from charging a fee to transfer money but tech is disrupting this. Apps like Square Cash, created by Twitter’s Jack Dorsey, has eliminated transfer fees for debit card accounts. Square Cash is completely free with no hidden fees for peer-to-peer cash transfer.

ISSUE 118

PORTFOLIO.

UPFRONT / MONEY Early in 2015, it became clear that Wall Street was serious about bitcoin. A startup called Coinbase announced a $75 million funding round (like virtually all of these companies, they don’t disclose valuations). Along with the usual VC firms, Andreessen Horowitz, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, were some names that had never been associated with bitcoin: USAA, a private bank that caters to people in the US military, BBVA Ventures, the investment arm of Spain’s second biggest bank, and the global headquarters of American-style capitalism, the New York Stock Exchange.

That opened the floodgates. Since then there has been a steady stream of stories, big banks starting some kind of bitcoin project, some kind of blockchain experiment.

Nasdaq is working on incorporating bitcoin into one of its smaller exchanges. Citi Ventures has been experimenting internally with three bitcoin-like coins, dubbed ‘Citicoins.’ Both Bloomberg and the NYSE carry bitcoin price quotes. A handful of Wall Streeters have simply left their big banks for bitcoin and blockchain startups.

The most notable name was Blythe Masters, an executive at JP Morgan best known as one of the principal creators of the credit default swap. Masters left Morgan for Digital Asset Holdings, a firm that’s looking to incorporate blockchain technology into the financial plumbing, especially the settlement process.

Right now, that’s where the heat is greatest. Over the summer, a startup called Symbiont unveiled what it called its ‘Smart Securities’ trading platform, which can be used to issue debt and other assets.

Bitcoin exchange ItBit is building its own platform, which it’s calling Bankchain. Also, Patrick Byrne’s Overstock.com unveiled its own version, called t0; their slogan is: ‘the trade is the settlement.’

THE VALUE OF A SINGLE BITCOIN IN THE LAST FOUR YEARS $1,000 $800 $600 $400 $200 $0 2011

2012

2013

2014

2015

“In five or ten years, upstart technologies like bitcoin are going to fundamentally transform the financial industry” The concept has been around for decades: the idea of ‘smart contracts’ that are essentially just programmable, digitized transactions. Because any asset that can be digitised can be recorded in the blockchain. Imagine being able to trade and settle instantly and nearly cost-free. This system, if it’s built properly, if it works, could cut tens of billions of dollars worth of costs out of the system, and free up all that dead money that sits around being held for collateral.

If all this were was a story of a quick-fix product that’ll save banks money, it wouldn’t be of much interest to anybody outside banking. The great promise of bitcoin, though, is of a system that levels the costs of banking, and spreads its reach into every crevice of the globe. Billions of people who have not had access to banking services, people who have not been able to build up the kind of credit history people

in the developed world take for granted, have a chance to unlock their ‘dead capital,’ have a chance to build up their wealth.

Bitcoin and its open ledger, its blockchain, hold out the promise of affordable, reliable land registries, of huge savings in the global remittance business, and of microloans and micropayments.

This is becoming a story that’s bigger than bitcoin. Technology is opening up banking in ways that we are just starting to take seriously.

It’s impossible to say how this will all play out, but it’s a pretty safe bet ‒ in fact, it’s a bet that most people on the Street, in the City, and anywhere they take Visa are making ‒ that in five or ten years, the upstart technologies like bitcoin are going to fundamentally transform the financial industry.

Paul Vigna is the co-author of The Age Of Cryptocurrency: How Bitcoin And Digital Money Are Challenging The Global Economic Order

living report

24

Portfolio.

OctOber issue 118

focus on mitte, Berlin

/upfrOnt

Prosperity has risen in the area created from former West and East Berlin districts.

Words: Arsalan Mohammad

Berlin

HAM Fly Emirates to Hamburg, catch a direct, 90-minute, train to Berlin

Portfolio.

OCTOBER ISSUE 118

UPFRONT / LIVING REPORT

Recommended…

Area map: Mitte, Berlin CHEESECAKE

ART BOOKSHOP

Princess Cheesecake Tucholskystrasse 37

Do You Read Me? Auguststrasse 28, Mitte The city’s favourite indie art book store in the heart of Mitte, selling a global selection of art books, magazines, pamphlets, manifestos and much more to the local arterati.

A temple to the manifold joys of the cheesecake ‒ here rendered in countless shapes, sizes and flavours.

With organic, locally-sourced ingredients wherever possible and healthy options available, this is the city’s ultimate cake shop.

DESIGN DSTM 161 Torstraße, Mitte Canadian-born designer Jen Gilpin’s ‘Don’t Shoot The Messenger’ is the definitive city look ‒ austere raunchiness, in slinky clothing, made mostly in fine black silk and leather.

Spree

RESTAURANT Dottir, Mittelstrasse 40, Mitte Icelandic cuisine meets shabby Mitte cool at Dottir, with chef Victoria Eliasdottir (sister of artist Olafur Eliasson) serving up delicious, wholesome and beautifully presented dishes at this recently-opened restaurant.

GALLERY Schinkel Pavilion, Oberwallstrasse 1, Mitte A bizarre DDR-era architectural oddity in the grounds of the former Crown Prince Palace in the heart of Mitte, Schinkel Pavillon is an eccentric art space that invites edgy local and international artists to create mindboggling installations and performances within its unique space.

Legend Art

Shop

BOUTIQUE The Store Torstraße 1, Mitte Next to Soho House, this bright, vast multi-faceted space encapsulates the new mood of Berlin, with a chic, retro interior selling everything from flowers to fashion, magazines, books and much more. A cool café in the corner serves up organic salads and healthy drinks to a fashion-conscious crowd.

Dining PORTFOLIO.

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OctOber issue 118

upfront / living report

L

28

ess than 30 years ago, the central Berlin district of Mitte was a grey, austere place, the seat of the East German government and a depressing landscape of bleak architecture, coal-blackened stonewalled streets and encircled on three sides by the Berlin wall, slicing off the western world.

Today, the district is unrecognisable .

Following the fall of the Wall in 1989, Mitte has evolved bumpily into a charismatic, diverse, stylish and dynamic microcosm of this ever-changing city. Spanning the former East and West, following a redrawing of city boundaries in 2001, Mitte 2015 is the epicentre of a new, young, sexy Berlin ‒ awash with enterprise, start-ups, pop-ups, trendy boutiques and galleries, bars, clubs, cafes and restaurants and the babble of voices from across the world crowding the cobblestone streets and parks.

The area still resonates with echoes of the city’s past ‒ it’s here you can still find traces of the city’s turbulent history, from the Imperial-era grandeur along the Unter der Linden boulevard, leading up to the symbol of Prussian might, the Brandenburg Gate to the rebuilt Reichstag parliament building by the Spree riverside which flows on by Museum Island, a Unesco heritage site, home to five imposing 19th century museums. You can also discover the path of the former Wall, along from Checkpoint Charlie towards the south of the district to the northern stretch, fragments still remaining, along Bernauerstrasse. But whether your tastes veer towards the opulent and stately or the scruffy and edgy, this part of the city is home to the best Berlin has.

Portfolio.

In recent years, the couple of miles between Alexanderplatz and Rosenthalerplatz have seen an influx of hipsters and style mavens, in search of achingly-cool style and fashion in shops such as Das Neue Schwarz, Baerck, Worlds End and C’Est Tout, all offering up quirky and quality fashion. The tiny side street Mulackstrasse has developed into something of a destination for those in search of local brands, such as Starstyling and Lala Berlin, who design and produce their own gear. And around the corner, the formerly drab artery road Torstrasse is now fast-emerging as a hotspot with concept stores and big brands selling everything from high-end sneakers to covetable

antiques, jewellery and more minimalist, tasteful fashion.

Once suitably attired, time to turn attention to another boom sector in Mitte’s reviving economy ‒ the cocktail bar. Berlin boasts a number of discreetly stylish establishments which take the art of mixology deadly seriously (with prices to match). These tiny, elite venues ‒ like Buck & Breck, Beckett’s Kopf and Pauly Saal ‒ are currently setting the benchmark for avant-garde mixology. They fit into the city’s wider lifestyle renaissance with a new surge of passionate entrepreneurs and chefs, advocates of quality, locavore, organic, healthy comestibles, setting up shop where once was all boiled trotters and cabbage, with a cold-boiled potato on the side. Reunification has meant that with an increasingly cosmopolitan population, Berlin dining has been getting steadily more international. But for those seeking the opulent feel of aristocratic, old Berlin, Mitte’s grand dining venues such as Borchardt, Lutter & Wegner, Malatesta and Pauly Saal are sprinkled with Michelin stars and attract a suitably plutocratic clientele.

cost of living Berlin’s tallest residential building, designed

by Frank Gehry is currently being build on Alexanderplatz and will be completed in 2017.

€145,000 can secure a 38 square metre two-room flat, while opulent new developments, such as forthcoming Lux apartment block, see a 228 square metre fourbedroom unit pegged at €2.5 million. However, most people in Berlin rent with the average size for 2014 of rental apartments 70.6 square metre and average rent €8.55 per square metre, showing an increase in average rent of 3.8 per cent since 2013.

OctOber issue 118

upfrOnt / prOperty

for sale | Dubai

Ettore 971 Bugatti villa Villas designed by Bugatti, car not included

Seven-bedrooms

A 30

Seven-bathrooms

Roof terrace

t the recent annual Cityscape Global show in Dubai, perhaps the most intriguing launch was that of the Bugattidesigned villas. Called ‘Ettore 971’ ‒ the name of the Bugatti founder and the international dialling code for Dubai ‒ the limited number of seven-bed villas have been styled by the automotive company, with curves and roof grilles reminiscent of their Veyron, the world’s fastest road car.

They’re to be built in the Akoya Oxygen site, overlooking an 18-hole golf course, but notably, the car bay has (retractable) glass walls, so when you park your sport car it becomes an internal centrepiece of the living room. You probably need to own a goodlooking car to make all of this worthwhile, but given the $9.8 million property asking price, it’s a safe bet owners will roll in something pretty stylish.

Portfolio.

Maid’s / driver’s room

Dubai

Price In the region of $9.8m

Damacproperties.com

Golf course adjacent

Swimming pool

Indoor glass garage

october issue 118

upfront / automotive

An escape system behind the back seats

Bulletresistent privacy glass

Anti-tamper exhaust

Self-sealing fuel tank

Heavyduty runflat tyres

luxury | global

Range Rover Sentinel

Three oTher luxury cArs ThAT cAn sTop bulleTs

The armoured luxury sport-utility vehicle that under-threat suburban millionaires with dangerous enemies have been waiting for

A

rmour-plated cars are not latest is Land Rover with its Sentinel. new things, and should you The hand-built SUV is based on a Range wish, you could invest in a Rover Autobiography, but the upgrades are hulking great Dartz Prombron, worth of Q’s laboratory in a Bond film. or a ten-tonne South African Maureder.

Land Rover says the vehicle is verified to But these vehicles (you can barely call VR8 standard against ballistic threats, them cars) look like something from the meaning it can withstand armour piercing Mad Max film and attract a whole load of incendiary bullets and the blast from DM51 attention. Many people prefer discretion. grenade explosions.

Meanwhile, in San Antonia there’s a There’s a six–piece armoured passenger company called Texas Armoring that will cell, made of super-high-strength steel and take your existing vehicle and add armour. the multi-laminated armoured privacy glass.

This ranges from bullet-proofing to run-flat It’s got an escape system behind the back inserts installed in the wheels so you can seats for when the exiting via the doors still drive if your tyres are shot out. isn’t on. Other features include an antiThey’re doing a brisk trade, with the cost tamper exhaust, a self-sealing fuel tank, ranging from $55,000 all the way up to an auxiliary back up battery and run-flat $500,000 and beyond. Their clients range inserts on the tyres. from contractors in warzones to politicians The big military-looking 4x4s will still be and celebrities such as Mel B ‒ it seems around, but consider this upgrading from almost two decades on, people still have a a bulky combat vest to a sleek bulletproof problem with the Spice Girls. tuxedo. The price will be around $445,400 But increasingly, traditional luxury car but if you’re a rich person with armed brands are producing bulletproof security enemies (seemingly a growing demographic) versions of their own beloved models. The it could be a price worth paying.

Mercedes-Benz S-Class Guard ‒ $1.4m

Audi A8 L Security – $685,000 to $1,000,000

BMW 7 Series High Security – $350,000

33

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34

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features

portfolio.

Is anyone asking people what they want from the smart cities of the future?

Words: Gary Graham

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future cities

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uture cities, where infrastructure adapts to our needs, offer an enticing prospect. But who is in the driving seat as these urban developments crop up around the world? We need to make sure that the people who will actually live in these cities benefit.

I recently attended a British government meeting about future cities and found that all the discussion related to branding, bio-tech innovation, hi-tech transport infrastructure and opportunities for universities. I pointed out that at least half the population don’t engage with such things directly, if at all. Most everyday people are more concerned with how to get by and even how to survive in an increasingly hostile city. One British civil servant replied: “oh, you mean the dark underbelly...”.

This, it seems to me, is exactly how elevated mandarins in London see normal people who live in inner city communities.

Over the past decade we’ve watched young people become increasingly immersed in social media. But while these technologies promise to allow us to connect with more people without geographical boundaries, the reality could be more like a kind of digital enslavement. So as we develop our cities of the future, we need to think about who makes the decisions.

There are a number of different future city visions being developed around the world at the moment. Some are smart cities, in which the internet of things allows objects to think smart. Others seek to put sustainability at their heart, with electric cars and transport systems.

Built from the ground up on reclaimed land in 2005, Songdo International Business District in South Korea is a smart city and an aerotropolis that opened in 2009.

The trouble is, large companies such as IBM, Samsung, Cisco and Intel are involved in and have much to gain from the development of future cities. It’s companies like these that provide the connectivity needed to make traffic lights talk to each other and the hardware that makes our future services run with precision.

It’s not clear at the moment whether future cities are strategic experiments for these companies or if they are genuinely catalysing the regeneration of inner cities.

To investigate some of these visions, I went to MIT in Boston for three months last year. The aim was to find out how people would get their goods and services in the city of the future and how we we get everyone to engage with city plans.

We decided to test out some ideas 37 with the inner city communities of Boston in a series of workshops. We essentially combined science fact and science fiction by presenting them with a Boston set in 2037 based on portfolio.

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current technological trends projected forward through several imagined scenarios.

We combined the traditional science fiction ideas of utopia and dystopia with realistic technological trends such as artificial intelligence, 3D printing and big data and asked Bostonians to come up with fictional stories about their life in these environments.

Participants talked through imaginary scenarios ranging from the ordinary to the extraordinary. They could control home appliances such as heating using smartphones or saw a future in which the blind were assisted by holographic guide dogs. You could walk your hologram dog in those city urban spaces of ubiquitous public technology. We explored together the possible uses of public technologies in this, bearing in mind the various divides that exist among different users of technology. Social activities are among the most important aspects of urban life that need to be supported through the introduction of new technology and services. In another story, an elderly female character with dementia navigated various everyday situations with the help of her intelligent wrist computer.

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lthough participants felt positive about future technology, the scenarios they imagined involved using it as an accessory to city living. They were more pessimistic about the ability of technology to make major changes to their lives either socially and economically or for it to regenerate the infrastructure and economy of inner-city areas of Boston. Many cited Bowdoin-Geneva as an example.

The Boston Globe had recently run a well publicised 68 Blocks social experiment designed to investigate the reasons for this neighbourhood’s long history of high crime and shootings. It opened up nothing more than a conversation.

Workshop participants felt smart cities were rather utopian concepts growing from a vision put forward by one group of businesses. There was general agreement that there were often many visions for the city, but “at the moment it’s the rich and powerful who determine that future vision”.

Many were troubled by the notion that people would live in a city purely because of its technology capabilities and thought there were lots of other important social and cultural reasons influencing people’s decisions to live or work somewhere. Just because these urban centres could offer us new ways of living in the future does not negate the importance of the natural environment, history and legacy. portfolio.

“At the moment it’s the rich and powerful who determine that future vision” Top Left: Rendering of a Hyperloop, Elon Musk’s proposed highspeed transit system, in Los Angeles Top right: Masdar City in Abu Dhabi is designed to be a hub for environmentally responsible businesses and a model for carbon-neutral development

The need to engage young people in discussions about the cities of the future was another recurring theme.

Problems of engaging young people in future city planning were also emphasised.

Brasilia was cited as a failed future city vision and others questioned the appeal of living somewhere like Masdar City, the hi-tech cluster under development in Abu Dhabi, which is aimed very much at business and innovation rather than the needs of the average person. Increased segregation and welfare costs were raised as potential side effects of the widened societal gaps that could occur if smart cities became a reality.

The people I worked with generally enjoyed living in Boston and many had migrated there from other cities or countries. It was seen as a

future cities

“the people living in cities far outnumber the people making decisions about what those cities should look like in the future ‒ they’re disconnected from plans being made on their behalf”

friendly and progressive town with a promising future ahead of it. A key message was that people needed to start living smarter, cleaner and more efficiently now if their grandchildren were to inherit a comparable or better Boston in 2037.

They all wanted something similar to what they have now but with eco-friendly modifications such as better provision for cyclists and a looped rail network like those found in London and Paris.

Cities are complex entities, like cells. They are made up of technical, social and physical systems that interact like a human body or an ecosystem. If something goes wrong with such a complex entity, it takes a long time to cure.

The growth of cities and urban areas in the 21st century is putting pressure on living standards, which poses serious challenges for us all. Growth is contributing not only to a crushing cycle of poverty but also crippling social problems, such as drug abuse and crime. Cities are struggling to establish a sustainable economic base and with it employment opportunities, wealth creation, role models and improved local infrastructure.

Ideally a future city will have inner city areas that are sustainably created through private, for profit initiatives, and investment based on genuine competitive advantage – not through artificial inducements, charity or government mandates.

40 The people living in cities far outnumber the people making decisions about what those cities should look like in the future. They are disconnected from the plans being made by companies and even governments on their behalf. We need to start working with everyday citizens to find the right questions and then work with them towards developing solutions to the problems they raise. portfolio.

what we predicted back in 1979

With words from tech guru Kenneth Gatland and David Jefferies, this is one of a set of four World Of The Future books that told a generation of children what our cities would be like in the future, from computers in the home to sports on the moon.

Many of the predictions were largely accurate, with electric cars, big-screen TVs, people working from home thanks to computers being linked, computer watches and electronic mail. There aren’t as many geodisic domes as they anticipated and cars with gull-wing doors remain the preserve of impractical sports cars rather than being the prefered way to get in and out of cars.

What books like this do illustrate is the continuing occurance of generations predicting that future cities will look like more advanced versions of what already exists, rather than anticipaing new directions. It’s why sci-fi made in the Sixties is so distinctly from that era, as it is with most decades ‒ we extrapolate the existing, because new inventions are hard to envisage, just as few anticipated the problem of increased amounts of horse dung on the streets would soon be solved by the invention of the car.

One prescient line, however, reads, “What happens in the cities of the future depends a lot on what measures are taken to take care of our world, the earth. Adequate steps must be taken to control pollution and conserve energy until oil replacements are developed and to develop agriculture to feed 6,000 million people.”

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GOING UNDERGROUND portfolio.

In London there are at least 40 overground and underground stations that still exist but are no longer used.

Transport For London is now seeking ideas from businesses to lease some of the 400 square metres available at the disused Down Street station. Globally, as we run out of space in big cities, going underground could be the solution Words: John Mackin 43

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hen prices for apartments in the centre of our major cities reach $100 million ‒ as happened recently in Manhattan when a condo set a new record on ‘Billionaires Row’ ‒ then we can safely assume that available real estate in such prime locations is at a premium.

Riding out the 2008 crash and subsequent recession better than most, the property boom in the very heart of New York continues unabashed.

The centre of Manhattan is again covered in cranes as a clutch of new 1,000-foot plus skyscrapers ‒ as elegant and thin as their future new residents ‒ force their way towards the heavens driven by a financial phototropism that’s breaking all records. In New York the sky, it seems, is the limit.

For other cities, however, with less of a vertically inclined development pedigree and more draconian planning restrictions, the option to extend the available square footage upwards isn’t always viable nor, indeed, publicly acceptable.

But where there’s a demand then the market usually finds a way, and like the financial investments that drive such rampant development, if it’s not

going to go up, then it’s ‒ almost certainly ‒ going to go down.

Hyde Park West, like the Big Apple’s Park Avenue, is the city’s most desirable address. It is London’s Billionaire’s Row, the preferred residence of the globe-trotting ultra-rich. It is also home to the capital’s own £140 million penthouse ‒ the most expensive in Britain ‒ at One Hyde Park, owned

by Ukranian oligarch Rinat Akhmetov, reported to be worth anything between $7 and $12 billion.

Yet One Hyde Park, fabulously exclusive that it is, is far from the ‘mile-high’ penthouse duplex of mid-town Manhattan. It occupies the top floors of a block that stands only a little over a dozen storeys, yet another ‘victim’ of Central London’s strict planning regulations.

These seemingly inflexible restrictions, ostensibly aimed at preserving the historic character of the inner London boroughs of Kensington, Chelsea and Westminster, have meant that many multi-million pound homes are frozen in a stately cityscape of Georgian, Victorian and Edwardian stasis. These grand terraces and squares are the traditional homes of the British aristocratic and social elite. They don’t like change much round these parts, especially change stoked by bullish, foreign ‘new money’.

Ticket office from original Down Street station with old-style ticket machines on near-left of the photo

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Transport For London’s presentation, breaking down the space on offer and suggestions for use

Nor do they appreciate ostentatious expressions of wealth intruding on their vistas. As such plans for costly modern extensions to traditional houses are fiercely opposed as being ‘vulgar’. Most proposals are rejected. So when the plutocrats demand the extra space that a bowling alley, or a collection of Bentleys, might require the only way is to go underground; to excavate ‒ sometimes several stories deep ‒ beneath their existing houses and gardens.

Planning applications for lavish subterranean extensions, housing cinemas, gyms and swimming pools are running at around 10 a week in Belgravia and Mayfair, the most exclusive neighbourhoods of London. Even then the huge disturbance caused by building work and the extra traffic has local long-term residents up in arms. For the super-wealthy, however, the disruption, the legal wrangling, and the enormous cost ‒ £500 per square foot ‒ is still worth it as these underground pleasure palaces add double their cost to the value of these palatial abodes.

“Planning applications for lavish subterranean extensions, housing cinemas, gyms and swimming pools, are running at around 10 a week in Belgravia and Mayfair”

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And yet just a couple of hundred yards away, in a similarly prestigious location on Piccadilly, close

by Buckingham Palace, lies another development opportunity that offers the prospect of extensive space with little (if any) local opposition. If anything you may even earn the gratitude of the locals. All it requires is for the new tenant to be mega rich and have just a little imagination.

Down Street Underground Station, on the famous Piccadilly Line, was opened in 1907 and served the illustrious denizens of this select corner of the Edwardian city. It stands adjacent to The Athenaeum on Piccadilly and opposite leafy Green Park, one of the Royal Parks of London. And that seemed to be its problem ‒ the neighbourhood was home to people who never used the tube and who largely travelled by horse-drawn carriage, and later by limousine. By 1932 it had closed, largely due to underuse, but also because it was too near two neighbouring, much busier stations. During the Second World War it had a brief, but historic, respite, housing Churchill’s War Cabinet, and the Wartime Railway Executive Committee. In 1945, it closed again and once again fell into disuse. It remains today a ghostly reminder of wartime Britain and the by-gone, pre-war days of the London Underground. But not it seems for long.

Transport For London (TfL) has included this station amongst a portfolio of 50 or so tube, bus and commercial properties that are to be leased or sold to potentially raise £3.5 billion for reinvestment in London’s transport network. Down Street is seen as an important and potentially lucrative opportunity for London’s more daring and creative developers.

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“Down Street is seen as an important and potentially lucrative opportunity for London’s more daring and creative developers”

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fL’s Director of Commercial Development, Graeme Craig, said: “This is a fantastic building. It is in the heart of Mayfair, it’s got great heritage, it’s been an important station. But it has not been used for 80 years. The challenge we have is, in a complex difficult space what uses can we bring to this station? How can we bring it back to life.”

TfL is inviting developers to submit plans that Craig hopes will “create something exceptional and establish the next chapter in the station’s history.” The possibilities for such a unique and historic site, in such superb location, means that TfL are ultimately searching for a development partner who can recognise the site’s potential and have the imagination and drive to deliver a venture befitting this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

A feasibility study for the station was undertaken by award-winning London architects Carmody Groarke, on behalf of TfL, who have an inventive portfolio of reimagined industrial and traditional spaces given new lease of life as galleries, restaurants, and leisure facilities. They were given the task of unlocking the potential of 400 metres square of underground space in a site not without difficulties. The main areas are essentially two long, serpentine pedestrian subways and a cylindrical vertical lift shaft. As such in order to maximise revenues for an undoubtedly costly refurbishment they delivered plans for a low-footfall, high-revenue grotto of exclusive bars, restaurants and an intimate theatre.

They described the site as a “unique and quirky venue situated in an incredible location at the heart

of prosperous and desired Mayfair… all beneath some of the most expensive commercial property in London”. Most interesting was their vision for the pedestrian subways – now reborn as snaking gallery space and exhibition area for product launches – all high-end and exclusive, of course.

There are precedents: Arsenal Metro station in Paris, which closed in 1939, is similarly disused and cobweb-strewn and similarly fabulously located in the city’s historic, fashionable 4th arrondisement, just a few hundred metres from Notre Dame. One recent Parisian mayoral candidate, Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet, of the centre-right UMP party invited proposals for the station’s rebirth if elected and produced a stunning array of images for the potential metamorphoses of the station. These featured sophisticated restaurants and galleries, through to a concert hall and nightclub, and finally to a subterranean swimming pool. Alas, for Parisian subterranean breast-strokers, Madame Kosciusko-Morizet was not elected.

Back in the Big Apple, one of the city’s recent successes has been the regeneration of a disused

Top: Down Street station before its closure in 1932. Note the slogan outside, ‘Underground to Anywhere ‒ Quickest Way, Cheapest Fare’ Below: The station today, the facade remains but the entrance is now used by a mini mart

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AlreAdy reclAimed…

The Old Vic Tunnels underneath Waterloo station. The former railway tunnels were transformed into a performance space by the Old Vic Theatre and housed art exhibitions and events – including a gig by Public Enemy.

Now, show brand Vans has taken over the 30,000 square-foot space to create a House of Vans.

Two of the five tunnels were redesigned as skate ramps, while other rooms are used for film screenings and galleries.

For more see houseofvanslondon.com

west-side stretch of elevated railway transformed into a lush, linear urban park, an aerial greenway inspired by a similar project in Paris. In fact The High Line – a two kilometre-long stretch of the long-gone New York Central Railroad - has since become a tourist destination in its own right, and has helped spur real-estate development along its meandering route through Chelsea and the Meatpacking District. But New York can also re-use its forgotten underground stations.

Taking its cue from The High Line ‒ and perhaps from Down Street too ‒ The Low Line on the Lower East side is an imaginative and ambitious project to turn two acres of an abandoned subterranean Trolley Bus Terminal, laying in disuse since 1948, into an urban parkway 10 metres below the city’s streets.

It’s currently an eerie warren of cobbles and trolley48 bus tracks beneath a six metre high arched vaulted ceiling, supported by iron columns that give it the grandeur of the famous forest of Moorish pillars of La Mezquita in Cordoba, or more appropriately the ancient Basilica Cisterns, the vast, ancient underground reservoir in Istanbul. portfolio.

“Their vision for pedestrian subways – now reborn as snaking gallery space and exhibition areas for product launches” The plan involves new solar technology that channels sunlight from street-level collectors enabling trees and plants to grow naturally. Officially called The Delancy Underground the project aims to bring serenity and greenery to one of the busiest areas of one of the world’s most densely populated cities, whilst preserving the essence of the mass-transit system that it springs from.

We can only hope that whatever becomes of Down Street tube station it shares the same good fortune.

Two entrepreneurs set up a subterranean garden in part of the Clapham North tunnels, under Clapham North tube station. The tunnels were originally constructed in 1942 as an extention to the underground to shelter up to 8,000 people during Second World War air raids.

Now the 2.5-acre farm sits 33 metres under the streets of Clapham and uses hydroponic systems and LED technology to grow produce like basil, coriander, cress and radish.

For more see growingunderground.com

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OR IGI N OF A N E W T I M E

wozniak

Why the hero of this month’s Steve Jobs biopic is Steve Wozniak Words: Andy Morris

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For scriptwriter Aaron Sorkin, Steve Jobs was a “very complicated man doing something very difficult”. Director Danny Boyle is more emphatic, describing him a “monster made beautiful by language.” But for Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, Jobs was simply “my best friend”.

But Jobs is not the hero of his own movie.

The character who steals every scene is Wozniak’s on-screen stand-in, Seth Rogen.

Introduced in Sorkin’s script, Wozniak couldn’t be more different than the volatile Jobs. “Woz is amiable. He is not looking for trouble and while he’s an undisputed genius, he doesn’t have Steve’s anger or Steve’s polish.” Wozniak is the heart of the film ‒ the one who cares about Apple and its team of creatives more than anyone.

Many cite Rogen’s casting as a masterstroke, including Paul Wilson from Empire magazine.

“Rogen looks a little like Wozniak ‒ the facial hair, the twinkle, the less-than-perfect body.

But crucially, Rogen also has what Woz has: underdog likability. They’re both poster boys for the triumph of the geeks, so the one playing the other is a perfect match.”

This is confirmed by reading iWoz, Wozniak’s unconventional 2007 memoir, in which the engineer’s thoughts occasionally sound like 52 the sort of observation Rogen would make through a cloud of smoke.

Take Wozniak’s argument for voting for George W Bush in 2000: “I thought it would be nice to have an average Joe kind of person in the White House instead of a smart, well

educated one. Someone who could only speak in very small words.” He was joking, of course.

He actually voted for Nader, which, ironically, was as good as voting for Bush.

Part of the reason that Steve Jobs is Wozniak’s movie is that he is one of the most relatable characters. He plays a variety of parts opposite Jobs’ tyrant: confidant, counsel, rival. He’s not happy being a punchline but he’ll also be self-deprecating if he needs to be. Wozniak also sometimes diffuses difficult situations of Jobs’ own creation, offering a lifeline for those exasperated by their leader’s obsessive demands.

He’s also not above tackling Job’s monstrous ego head-on and does so memorably with one of the best lines in the script. When discussing the early days of Apple, an exasperated Wozniak compares the pair to the Beatles: “I’m tired of being Ringo when I know I was John.”

(In reality the pair often debated musical topics, initially dismissing the work of Lennon and McCartney as merely “nice to be-in-lovewith-you songs”).

On screen and off, the issue of credit for Apple’s monumental success is key. Rogen’s Wozniak hits back at Jobs for not supporting his co-workers: “I gave away stock options to people whose names you can’t remember.”

A running theme in the film is Wozniak’s campaign to retain the Apple II team, boost morale and give them the kudos they deserve: Fassbender’s Jobs would rather not share the spotlight.

The fact’s back this up. Not only does Wozniak spend much of his own memoir offering fulsome praise to such overlooked Apple team members as Ron Wayne, Mike Scott and Randy Wigginton, but he was also willing to financially reward those who had believed in the company in the very beginning.

In late 1980, rather than hoard the stock for himself, Woz decided to give back to his community of Apple workers rather than outside investors. “I decided it would be better to sell some of my stock to employees and let them benefit,” he explained in his book. Employers could buy 2,000 shares of Apple for the price of $5: he

Jobs reportedly viewed his kindness as a sign of weakness, but philanthropy is key to Wozniak’s mission

PORTFOLIO.

SIX STEPS TO FOLLOW IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF THE APPLE PIONEER, ACCORDING TO IWOZ

1.

Even if you disagree, use other people’s expertise. For a laidback person like Wozniak, Apple taught him that in business you will often have to face conflicting ideas about how to market your products.

The key detail he took away? “Never pretend you can do someone’s job better than someone’s who’s been doing it for years.”

2.

Team up with those who don’t share your weaknesses.

Jobs and Wozniak had very different personalities but shared complementary skills. “Our introverted and extroverted personalities (guess who’s which) really helped us in those days. What one of us found difficult, the other often accomplished prettily handily.”

3.

Don’t design by committee In his memoir Wozniak blames the failure of the illfated Apple III on the decision to have it unduly influenced

WOZNIAK

Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, 1977

called it “The Woz plan”. He gave a million dollars worth of stock to some key early investors.

Jobs reportedly viewed this kindness as a sign of weakness but philanthropy is key to Wozniak’s mission. He writes: “I didn’t start Apple so that I would get more money than I would ever need to live on.”

It’s one of the examples that would suggest Wozniak is a far more inspiring figure than Jobs in some aspects. He was a true pioneer at combining the human and the technical and was, by his own estimates, around five years ahead of his competition. In iWoz, he underlines how progressive his concepts proved. “Before the Apple I, all computers had hard-to-read front panels and no screens and keyboards. After Apple I, they all did.” He admits he was at his happiest sharing ideas and concepts over coffee, doughnuts and circuit boards rather than adopting a management role. “I was meant to be an engineer who designs computers, an engineer who writes software, an engineer who tells jokes and an engineer who teaches other people things.”

by the marketing department. “These were executives in the company who could take a lot of their power and decide to put all their money and resources in the direction of their own ideas. Their own ideas as to what a computer should be.”

4.

Look after your employees.

Woz is a firm believer in supporting his company. “My thinking is that a company is like a family, a community, where we all take care of each other.” He takes particular umbrage at the “poorest, youngest or most recently hired workers are always the first to go.”

As Luke Dormehl, the author of The Apple Revolution explains, Woz’s rise confirms him as a hero for many Mac users.“For me, what makes Woz fascinating is that he’s not unique.

Woz was definitely a very smart engineer, without whom there would ever have been an Apple to begin with. But his concerns about making technology accessible to the masses, his joy in the disruptive, anti-authoritarian power of computing, speaks to a very definite time and place in Silicon Valley. Woz is the archetypal Homebrew Computer Club geek. Lots of people shared those concerns, but Woz was one of the few from that scene who made it big.”

They may be big now, but both Jobs’ and Wozniak’s careers have benefitted from mythmaking about the origins of Apple. Unlike Jobs however, Wozniak relishes the opportunity to debunk any untruths. He is a man who will tell it like it is, even if it makes people uncomfortable when he says the garage in which Apple’s workshop was founded was “bit of a myth”.

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Wozniak was, and still is, overlooked in favour of the presentation of Jobs.

The medium is the message

Given he savaged Ashton Kutcher’s 2013 attempt to bring his friendship with Jobs to the screen (“Totally wrong. Our relationship was so different than what was portrayed”), it was unsurprising that he has already issued a caution to Sorkin’s film. “Accuracy is second to entertainment in a movie like this,” he explained, although insisted he was honoured to be played by Rogen. His reaction to the trailer as a whole was also more promising.

“The lines I heard spoken were not things I would say but carried the right message, at least partly. I felt a lot of the real Jobs in the Steve Wozniak at this year’s Aldea Digital event trailer, although a bit exaggerated.”

Thankfully for Wozniak, the film makes clear that Jobs was a marketing not a manufacturing Jobs left Apple of his own accord in 1985. “It’s a genius. Wozniak claims sole credit for designing misconception in Silicon Valley that he was fired.

Apple’s first computers in iWoz and the film He quit. And that made him look disloyal.” He’s gracious enough in his memoir to say that Jobs doesn’t challenge his assertion.

There’s a line in the script from Wozniak to is what the company needed ‒ although with Jobs that sums this up: “You can’t write code, the caveat that Jonathan Ive has already begun you’re not an engineer, you’re not a designer, work on the iPods and the iMacs that would turn you can’t put a hammer to a nail. I built the cir- around Apple’s fortunes.

Despite having not worked cuit board, the graphical interface in the day-to-day role at was stolen from Xerox PARC. Jeff Apple for over two decades Raskin was the leader of the Mac (he is currently employed team before you threw him off his as chief scientist at software own project… so how come I hear company Fusion-io Inc) ten times a day that Steve Jobs is a Wozniak remains something genius? What do you do?” like Apple’s spiritual guide.

Jobs reply is perhaps the most Part of this is down to his conJobsian reply possible, “I play siderable charm. Bloomberg’s the orchestra and you’re a good Nate Lanxon tells Portfolio: musician.” It captures perfectly the trademark tongue in cheek “Woz embodied the spirit of Seth Rogan as Wozniak in the Steve Jobs biopic it’s-not-a-bug-it’s-a-feature arroApple’s early hardware innogance, but the exchange sums vations but never had the ego up how creator Wozniak was, and still is, over- of his colleague, which made him not only the looked in favour of the presentation of Jobs. genius behind those early advances over their The medium is the message. rivals but had a truly likeable charisma that Sorkin also makes it clear that John Sculley, kept his peers respecting his ability.” long blamed for “firing” Jobs, was actually not Part of the secret of Wozniak’s charisma is wholly to blame. Wozniak also points out that a sense of mischief making that borders

5.

Keep your employees engaged Wozniak went to his employer Hewlett Packard numerous times before he left to found Apple as he felt it was unethical not to inform them what he had been working on. Even when they began building a desktop machine, they still didn’t invite him onto the team. “When you have an employee who says he’s tired of calculators and is really productive in computers, you should put him where he’s productive. Where he’s happy.”

6.

A young audience may surprise you or not. Asked to market research the lineup for his US Festival in 1982, Wozniak was frustrated that the teenagers polled reflected merely what was being played on MTV. “It was like all they wanted was two performers: Bruce Springsteen and Men at Work. It wasn’t as if they had any special knowledge we didn’t have. That was disappointing.”

iWoz by Steve Wozniak is out now. portfolio.

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on the pathological. As a child he presented President Nixon with a fake certificate for a school organisation that he wrote on the way to the ceremony. He was once caught by the police after hooking up an electronic metronome with “Contact Explosive” written on it. As a college freshman he used a TV jammer to infuriate his fellow students who were convinced their set was broken (he referd to them as “a whole audience of guinea pigs”).

Sometimes his jokes paid off unexpectedly: he met his first wife Alice Robertson after he set up a phone based dial-a-joke machine that received thousands of calls a day where Wozniak would pretend to be a grumpy Polish man called Stanley Zebrazutsknitski.

For all the awards that the film will no doubt win, a Wozniak stand-alone biopic would make perfect sense. There’s would be more than enough material. As a child in class, Wozniak once survived being hit with 22,000 volts from a TV set but was thrown back five feet.

As a teenager he invented a blue box phone hacking system that allowed him to make free phone calls worldwide (he once phoned the Pope pretending to be Henry Kissinger). At the age of 31 he survived a plane crash, suffered anterograde amnesia (losing the ability to form new memories) and then pretended to be a 19-year-old college student at Berkeley called ‘Rocky Raccoon Clark’. He developed the first on-demand movie system for hotels, ran a cinema in a rough neighbourhood and became a lifetime freemason to try and save one of his four marriages (it didn’t work). This is without even going into the details of how he came to stage two major music festivals that involved Fleetwood Mac, a live linkup with Soviet Russia and an estimated loss of $24 million. It’s the sort of remarkable life that should be on screen.

Whether his unlikely career does receive a full-length celluloid tribute, one suspects it won’t bother its subject unduly. And the this month’s film can be read as a modern, business allegory of how manufacturing has been superseded by marketing. The man who created and built is left in the dark by the one who presents the creation.

Wozniak though isn’t looking for more credit and seems burdened by bringing up the past.

“In some ways, Apple is the bane of my life,” he once explained. “It’s as if my whole life is

1976

Apple I computer

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Apple Macintosh model M001

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Apple II micro computer

constantly being directed by Apple’s worldwide fame.” This is a man who seems content to think big, work hard, play pranks and only occasionally set the record straight.

During a moment of self-reflection, he once considered two very different individuals – one who had a demanding role at a company but was richly rewarded and the other who doesn’t have much money but laughs a lot.

For Wozniak, the choice is an easy one. “In my head, the guy who’d rather laugh than control things is going to be the one who has the happier life.”

Steve Jobs is out in cinemas this month

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co-founder of instagram

kevin systrom net worth: $400 million

age, 31

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cover story

The man who launched a billion #selfies Instagram has 300 million users posting 70 million pictures a day. But what of the man who started it all?

Words: Charlie Parrish 59

portfolio.

K

evin Systrom is a co-founder of Instagram, the photosharing social network that has more than 300 million users. He is 31 and in 2012 sold the 15-month-old company he founded with Mike Krieger to Facebook for $1 billion. He made a reported $400 million from the sale and remains its CEO (Facebook’s chief executive, Mark Zuckerburg, pledged to allow him to run Instagram independently) while Krieger serves as Instagram’s “technical lead”.

He’s also a very accommodating man, offering to take time from a helter-skelter London tour and meet for our interview. And he’s a very confident.

Instagram, he believes, has changed things. “One of the things I love about Instagram’s photos is they are there,” he says. “They stick around. It means historians are going to be able to look back at humanity at this point in time and engage, and understand what has happened and what people were seeing.” His ambitions are lofty (“In five years I hope Instagram is this all-seeing public feed of what’s happening in the world”) and he is phenomenally polished. If Mark Zuckerberg is Silicon Valley’s insular and awkward wunderkind, Kevin Systrom is its well-heeled prom king.

Born in Holliston, Massachusetts, but he was perhaps predestined for Silicon Valley. His father, Douglas, is a human resources vice-president for an East Coast home goods firm; his mother, Diane, is a technology veteran.

“She was at startups before start-ups were a thing,” he says. “She worked in advertising and marketing during the first dotcom boom.”

Like most wildly successful technology entrepreneurs, Systrom is quick to promote his nerdy credentials. He was a standout computer scientist and programmer at the prestigious and very expensive Middlesex boarding school in Concord, Massachusetts, tall and gangly, woeful teenage dress sense – but probe a bit deeper and you’ll discover another side. “The reason I loved electronic music is because I liked to DJ and I liked to

bring people together,” he says. “I was captain of the lacrosse team in my junior year. I loved to run. I loved photography and was president of the photography club. I brought people together through that.”

Did you enjoy boarding school?

“I don’t know that any teen enjoys high school,” he says. “It was a very small school [it has 375 students].

I probably had a rougher experience because I was super-tall and nerdy and into programming, so I was by no means the cool kid…”

But you don’t strike us as a nerd. You seem to be more sociable?

“I think that’s why our company works,” he says.

“I like to say I’m dangerous enough to know how to code and sociable enough to sell our company.

And I think that’s a deadly combination in entrepreneurship.”

Systrom’s post-school CV reinforces this confidence. After Middlesex he attended Stanford University in California and spent the winter term of his third year studying photography in Florence. Systrom was told to replace his Nikon with a plastic Holga camera that took square photos, which would become Instagram’s trademark. As a Stanford undergraduate he was selected to join the Mayfield Fellows Program, which provides students with expert training in hi-tech entrepreneurship.

“I then interned at Odeo for Evan Williams and his co-founder, Noah Glass,” he says. “Jack Dorsey was one of the first engineers, and I basically shared a desk with him for three months.” Odeo was a site that allowed users to record and publish podcasts, and its founders, plus Dorsey and Biz Stone, would

“In five years I hope Instagram is this allseeing public feed of what’s happening in the world”

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Above: The first photo that appeared on Instagram, July 16, 2010

instagram

Insta sucess How the Instagram app was born

1

a good idea

2 Kevin taught himself to code in spare time

3 He built a HTML5 prototype and gave it to his friends to use

go on to launch Twitter, another social-media phenomenon that would later show interest in purchasing Instagram.

Systrom graduated in 2006 with a BSc in management science and engineering. Two years at Google followed – the first spent working on products such as Gmail, Reader and Docs, and the second within the corporate development team ‒ before a brief stop at Nextstop, a location recommendation start-up that would be acquired

by Facebook in 2010. By his mid-20s, Systrom had worked for, with and under some of the industry’s most prominent companies and minds. (He had already turned down an offer to drop out of his final year at Stanford and work for Facebook.)

When people began investing in Instagram, they were investing in Systrom and then the product.

“It’s such a small world in the tech scene,” he says.

“We all learn a lot from each other’s companies.

The most important thing for me was working at Google and Odeo, and meeting people along the way. The Valley is a really small place and you should want to learn from people because there’s so much going on.”

Systrom quit Nextstop to concentrate on an idea he and his Brazilian-born college friend Krieger

4

Then met investors at a party and showed them the prototype

5

Kevin quit his job

6

$ Got $500,000 in funding

had been seeking funding for. Burbn (a nod to his favourite drink) was an app that encouraged users to check into locations, make plans with friends (earning themselves ‘points’ in the process) and post pictures. Although Burbn attracted $500,000 seed funding from San Francisco venture capitalist firms, user feedback dismissed it as too fussy, too complicated. And so they decided to “make a pivot” (Silicon Valley-speak for “accept you have made a mistake and move on”).

“I was on vacation with my fiancée – at the time, my girlfriend – Nicole [Schuetz, a fellow Stanford graduate] in Mexico when we had the aha moment,” Systrom says. “We were walking along the beach and I said that we needed something to help us [the company] stand out. Nicole then said, ‘Well, I don’t want to take photos, because my photos don’t look good. They’re not as good as your other friend Greg’s.’ He was also using the early product [Burbn]. I told her that was because Greg used filter apps. So she just said, ‘Well, you should probably have filters then.’ We went back to this small bed and breakfast in Mexico with dialup Internet connection and I spent the afternoon learning how to make a filter. That filter was X-Pro II, which still exists today, in its original form, in the app. The funny thing is if you look at the first photo ever on Instagram, it’s of Nicole – well, her foot – a stray dog and a taco stand in Mexico.

Had I known it was going to be the first photo on Instagram I would have tried a bit harder.”

Thus Burbn became Instagram, and launched on October 6, 2010. Before the launch Systrom portfolio.

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instagram Found a co- founder 7

Studied the prototype, that did everything from photos to checkins 8 9

put the app in the hands of influential friends, such as Jack Dorsey, who posted photographs shot with Instagram on their own social media channels. Expectation suitably whipped up, 25,000 people downloaded the free (as it will always remain, Systrom says) app in its first 24 hours.

By December it had one million registered users.

They adored its simplicity and, aside from the addition of the video clip capability, a messenger service between users and a raft of additional photo effects, it has remained the same product as at launch.

People also love those filters. Suddenly, the most throwaway picture of your cat, breakfast, holiday or new outfit could be prettied up and appear lifted from a glossy photo-shoot. Then, of course, came the selfie explosion. Critics suggest that Instagram fuels dangerous narcissism and encourages an untrue curation of our lives. Systrom is unbowed.

“I think every bit of our lives is in some way about presenting a certain image,” he says. “It’s why people wear the clothes they do. And some people care a lot about it and some people don’t care at all about it. And I wouldn’t pass judgment on it. I would say that it’s natural and it’s human and it existed long before Instagram existed.”

When, in April 2012, Facebook completed its acquisition of a company described by CNN as having “lots of buzz but no business model”, 30 million people were actively using Instagram, it had been crowned Apple’s 2011 App of the Year, it had annihilated all online photo-sharing competition and it had become a verb. Only a week before the deal was struck, Instagram had closed a $50 million round of financing that left the company valued at $500 million. Investors doubled their money in a week, and many business analysts were dumbfounded.

Zuckerberg was paying $1 billion for a tech company without a website that had yet to generate a dollar of revenue. Instagram introduced what it called “beautiful, brand-building” paid advertising in October 2013 and just over a year later Citigroup analysts valued it at $35 billion. Systrom contends they didn’t pull the trigger on the sale early, as Instagram would not have experienced its exponential growth without benefiting from Facebook’s size.

Was there a list of companies Instagram was willing to get into bed with?

Systrom laughs. “I’ve never heard it said that way,”

Paired app down to focus on photo

10 Created a new photo sharing app prototype from scratch. It was awful

11

Went back to the first prototype Kevin created called Burbn and made it an app for iPhone

12 Threw out all of its features out apart from photos

13 Renames it Instagram

14 launched on a Monday

15

After a few hours it became the number one app

he says. “In business you always have people interested. Always. We had people interested five days after our launch, and names you would recognise. It was about the balance of knowing what we wanted to do at the right time with the right people. And the cool part is, if you look at what we’ve done with Facebook we’ve got tremendous scale because of our partnership. I’m not entirely sure whether that would have happened with any other partner. I’m a pretty terrible fortune teller, so I’ll take it for what it is and say it’s gone really well.”

D

espite capitalising on Facebook’s stature Instagram remains a relatively nimble operation. It boasts about 200 employees (admittedly a vast number when compared with the 13 who were on the payroll at the time of the acquisition), mainly housed at Facebook’s main campus in Menlo Park, California, who, Systrom says, are encouraged to get out from behind their desks. “You know the outdoors company Patagonia?” he asks. “They pay their employees to take time off and go and explore. Like, mountains and camping and stuff. It makes them more of a Patagonia employee. I believe a big part of our culture is not just sitting in the office all day, because no one wants to see pictures of me sitting in front of a computer in an office. That’s not inspiring. Instagram is about showing that you’re out in the world.”

A scan of Systrom’s own Instagram account suggests he is rarely sitting behind his desk in San Francisco. He arrived for our interview from Germany, where he had attended training with the Bundesliga champions Bayern Munich. Before that he had been in Paris, for a Paris Saint-Germain match and fashion week (selfies scored with: the frizzy-haired Brazilian defender David Luiz, Karl Lagerfeld, the supermodels Karlie Kloss and Gigi Hadid, the chef Alain Ducasse and Louis Vuitton’s artistic director, Nicolas Ghesquière). Later, Jamie Oliver would throw him a party in London attended

by Russell Brand, Pippa Middleton and Liam Payne of One Direction. Unlike his boss, Systrom does not attend these functions in a hoodie. He met Lagerfeld in a tailored Brioni suit and Charvet knitted tie.

Indeed, there are reports he has attempted to introduce ‘Tie Tuesday’ in the Instagram office.

He is guarded about his private life beyond complimenting his fiancée. He and Schuetz live portfolio.

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Such as? “I think the move towards more private spaces to communicate is interesting. I never knew how important messaging would be for us. I never knew the implications of people being far more connected than they were ten or 20 years ago and behaviours changing as a result. There is a now a willingness to take funny selfies. But then there’s a willingness to always be connected and yet be online in a way that’s very private.

“Had I known it was going to be the first photo on Instagram I would have tried a bit harder”

be on the board of a Fortune Top 10 company and learn about what it takes to run a business for over 50 years. That’s what I mean when I say I am a businessperson. I happen to be someone who likes to code and likes tech, and tech happens to be a high-growth industry, but if there happened to be another high-growth industry two years from now, I’d probably be in that, too.’

It sounds wonderfully sensible, especially delivered in his bright and positive way. Instagram, I say to him, is very similar. It’s the positive social media.

“I might challenge that by saying it’s not always positive,” he replies. “You might say an outpouring of support after the attacks in Paris on January 7 was generally positive but it’s a sombre topic.

Generally people don’t come to Instagram to complain about something or make fun of someone.

But I guess what you’re saying is that you come to Instagram with positive intentions. I think that’s pretty awesome.’

LIKE

W HATSA P P

Facebook’s top three acquisitions

O C U LU S VR

“When I was growing up the Internet was all about your public profile. It was all about public sharing – public was the word, right? And now, it’s changing. We have a very fair amount of private accounts, and I’m very glad we decided to allow a private mode.”

Plenty of successful entrepreneurs describe themselves as “start-up junkies”. They are hooked on the late nights, high stakes and those first giddy flushes of success. Systrom is not in this number.

“I consider myself a business person rather than a start-up person,” he tells me. “I think by definition you have to start something to create a business, right? I guess you could just inherit business after business but I’m interested in investing. I like studying macro-economic trends. I love learning about existing businesses; I am on the Wal-Mart board, where I can learn about a very large business. There are very few 31-year-olds who get to

INS TA G RA M

together in San Francisco, where his sister also lives, while his parents still work and reside in Massachusetts. He lists his vices as fine dining and coffee (an espresso in the morning is his “only ritual”), continues to moonlight occasionally as a DJ, and is active in supporting the arts and emerging technologies.

Instagram’s users interacting with the world in such vast numbers has allowed it to diversify its influence. Images shot via Instagram have graced the covers of The New York Times and Time magazines, its videos break news, artists release clips of their long-awaited new material via their Instagram feed. After North Korea switched on its 3G mobile signal two years ago, Instagram was suddenly home to photos that gave an unprecedented, uncensored glimpse into life under Kim Jong-un.

“We’ve spent so much time investing in the social aspect, in the interest aspect, and with brands and celebrities,” Systrom says. “The one thing we’ve yet to crack is what’s happening in the world, live.

The second you have 300 million people contributing 70 million photos a day to Instagram like we do now, you get a real-time feed of the world. I want to be able to tune into the World Cup, I want to be able to tune into a fashion show, I want to be able to discover a latte artist in Tokyo. We do an OK job of surfacing this stuff at the moment [through hashtags and location tags], but there’s such a wealth of humanity inside Instagram and we need to make sure people can uncover all of those passions and interests.”

This is challenging, Systrom says, because the public’s relationship with the Internet is evolving. “We learn something new about how people use the Internet every day that goes by,” he says.

“Whether it’s assumptions about how permanent things are or how long people want their identities to stick around online, or the level of anonymity people want online, it’s all changing. I feel like the Newtonian physics of the Internet had been written and over the past three years you’re starting to see those laws challenged. That’s awesome for someone who grew up with the Internet thinking this was the way it was going to be for ever. There are fundamental examples of how people behave online changing.”

$19 BILLION The groundbreaking instant messaging app for smartphones that lets its users send text messages, images, videos, user location and audio media messages for free.

$2 BILLION A head-mounted display that gives the wearer an immersive virtual reality experience.

Primarily a device for video games, it will be bigger as more games add Rift support.

$1 BILLION Now valued at $35 billion. It has 300 million users, and according to Citigroup analysts accounts for about 16 per cent of Facebook’s roughly $221 billion value.

PORTFOLIO.

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maple syrup

T h e M A p l s y r u r e b e 066

It’s worth 30 times the price of crude oil and 70 per cent of the world’s supply comes from just one place. The world of maple syrup is lucrative and controlled by a cartel, but there’s a small group defying them Words: Ian Austen portfolio.

maple syrup

e p l s Barrels of maple syrup are stored at the federation’s global strategic reserve, in Laurierville, Quebec

The scenic and narrow lane that leads to Robert Hodge’s sugar camp is surrounded by a maze of plastic piping that draws sap from 12,000 trees. At the end of the lane, a ramshackle hut contains reverse osmosis pumps to concentrate the harvest. A stainless steel evaporator, about the size of a truck, finishes the conversion into maple syrup.

Just one thing is missing: the maple syrup.

For weeks, security guards, hired by the Federation of Quebec Maple Syrup Producers, kept watch over Hodge’s farm. Then one day, the federation seized nine tonnes of maple syrup, his entire annual production, worth about 60,000 Canadian dollars, or nearly $46,000.

The incident was part of the escalating battle with farmers like Hodge who break the law by not participating in the federation’s tightly controlled production and sales system.

“It’s a good thing that I’m not 35 years old because I’d pack up all my sugar equipment that’s movable, and I’d go to the United States ‒ oh yes, in a minute, in a minute,” said Hodge, 68.

Quebec produces more than 70 per cent of the world’s supply. The federation, in turn, portfolio.

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maple syrup

Above: Etienne Dubuc hoists barrels filled with maple syrup from a truck for weighing and processing Left: Samples are taken for testing from newly droppedoff barrels of maple syrup at the Federation

has used that dominance to restrict supply and control prices.

It is effectively a cartel, approved by the provincial government and backed by the law. In 1990, the federation became the only wholesale seller of the province’s production, and in 2004, it gained the power to decide who gets to make maple syrup and how much.

For much of its 49-year history, the federation largely toiled out of sight. Then in 2012, $18 million of maple syrup was stolen from the global strategic reserve, a warehouse where the federation stockpiles the sweetener. Police arrested more than two dozen people in the heist, the first of whom is expected to go on trial in November.

But the federation’s elevated profile exposed the controversial methods it uses to police the market. When the federation suspects farmers are producing and selling outside the system, it posts guards on their properties. It seeks fines from producers and buyers who do not follow the rule. In the most extreme situations, it 69 seizes production.

The federation is unapologetic. It defends the system, saying it keeps prices high and stable.

“Three-quarters of our members are happy or very happy with what we are doing,” said Simon portfolio.

maple syrup

Trépanier, the federation’s executive director. “Those producers are living through the maple syrup production. It’s their main income because we present them with a stable income.”

For hundreds of years, when many of Quebec’s families were rural, large and poor, sugaring off ‒ the process of collecting sap from the trees and turning it into syrup ‒ was a necessity, providing an inexpensive supply of sugar for the entire year. After the Second World War, sugaring became more of tradition, if a backbreaking one.

The development of plastic piping in the 1970s allowed farmers to tap far more trees, letting them significantly scale up production. But the new technology did not address the industry’s dubious economics.

Suitable sap flows only when the air temperature rises just above freezing, and it ends with the first burst of warm weather. Predicting the length of that highly variable period, and therefore production levels, is all but impossible.

While some producers formed cooperatives to create more financially viable operations, most were at the mercy of markets. For years, the buyers largely set prices and took only what they needed, leaving producers stuck with surpluses in high-yielding years.

Robert Hodge, a farmer and syrup producer who had his entire annual production of syrup seized by the Federation of Quebec Maple Syrup Producers for selling outside their system

$18 million of syrup was

stolen from the global strategic reserve, where the federation stockpiles the sweetener

The federation changed the calculus.

In 2003, a majority of federation members voted to make production quotas mandatory, meaning farmers could sell only a certain amount each year. Farmers are required to sell all their syrup through the federation or its designated agents.

Under the system, prices have risen to 2.92 Canadian dollars a pound (about $4.85 per kilogram) for the highest grades of syrup, from 2.14 Canadian dollars a pound ($3.55 per kilo) in 2004. In US stores, just under a half a litre goes for about $10. The shift has helped turn an annual ritual into a full-time occupation for many Quebec farmers.

Most of the world’s syrup passes through the new and more secure global strategic reserve in Laurierville, Quebec, which opened after the heist.

After the spring harvest, farmers from around the province send their syrup to the federation.

For months, hand trucks and forklifts unload barrels of syrup from tractor-trailers and cattle wagons. Inspectors use long ladles to draw samples from barrels and then grade the syrup in a laboratory.

After that, an assembly line empties the farmers’ barrels, pasteurizes the contents and repackportfolio.

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maple syrup

Maple reserve ages it into fresh white or light blue steel drums. Throughout the year, the syrup is shipped around the world to companies for bottling, flavouring and making candy.

To keep prices high, the federation enforces strict quotas for the province’s 7,400 producers. Instead of flooding the market during years with bumper crops, all syrup produced beyond that amount is stored in the federation’s warehouse, which helps prop up prices by limiting supply. When seasons are lean, it releases the syrup, to maintain stable supply and pricing.

After five particularly bad seasons drained most of its stock by 2008, the federation enlarged its hoard. Stacked in barrels nine high, the reserve currently holds about 27,220 tonnes of maple syrup.

Prices are set by the federation, in negotiation with a buyers’ group. The federation holds most of the power, given that it controls a majority of the world’s production.

Such domestic systems are facing scrutiny in a global marketplace. One major hurdle in the talks over the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a major trade deal with 12 countries, has been Canada’s refusal to dismantle a similar quota system for dairy and poultry farmers.

Maple syrup buyers, including some US companies, have bristled at the federation’s tactics. They appreciate the steady supply. But some have taken issue with the aggressive enforcement efforts, including large fines for companies buying from Quebec producers outside the system, and the rising prices.

Now the situation, critics contend, could prompt buyers and producers to shift to the neighbouring province of New Brunswick, and Vermont in the United States. Or consumers might simply use artificial syrup instead.

“People will always eat chicken,” said Antoine Aylwin, a Montreal lawyer who has represented several buyers in disputes with the federation, including some U.S. companies. “But they will not always eat maple syrup if they think that they can’t afford it.”

Like others who have invoked the federation’s wrath, Hodge’s battle seems as much about principle as avoiding a potentially crippling fine.

“Well, I don’t accept the system because I don’t believe in not being able to sell our product,” he said. “We just think that that product is ours. We bought the land. We’ve done all the work.

Why should we not be able to sell our product the way we want as long as we legitimately put it on our income tax?”

That’s a question that exasperates Trépanier of the federation.

While Trépanier studiously avoids calling the organization a cartel, he has described it as the OPEC of maple syrup, referring to the group of oil-producing countries. The system, he said, is doomed to collapse without production discipline.

Fines, which are levied through a weight-based formula, have approached $1 million in other cases. Hodge still hasn’t paid.

“If nothing is settled before next February, I won’t sugar,” Hodge said.

“They haven’t won yet,” he said. “They’re trying awful hard, but they haven’t beat us yet.”

The Global STraTeGic Maple Syrup reServe Quebec produced 71 per cent of the world’s 160.7 million pound maple syrup yield last year, and the majority of it has ended up here at The Global Strategic Maple Syrup Reserve.

The idea behind such a place, and the overly serious sounding name, may seem very Canadian and a little twee but this commodity is one of the most sought after and according to the federation, the global demand for the syrup has been increasing at around five per cent every year since 2010.

The security here, at what was once just a furniture factory, is comparable to that of somewhere like Fort Knox. The reason for such measures is not just a symbolic gesture towards the importance of one of Canada’s most famous exports. People will steal syrup.

The Great Maple Syrup Caper, as it came to be known, took place over a period of months between 2011 and 2012. A highly organised gang of thieves siphoned off the contents of 16,000 45-gallon barrels worth about $18 million wholesale.

Now serious precautions are taken.

Above: Hodge, inside his sugar shack in Quebec Below: Samples are taken for testing from newly droppedoff barrels of maple syrup

Stacked in barrels nine high, the reserve currently holds about

27,220 tonnes

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of maple syrup portfolio.

OctOber issue 118

investment piece

Canada Goose Mantra Parka The world’s warmest jacket. $1,275 5

Tunnel hood with internal wire to help tightly mound the hood and fur around your face

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75 For decades this jacket has been the choice of researchers and workers in remote, cold-weather regions. Technically nothing beats it. In the last few years, however, Canada Goose has trasitioned from technical to desirable with celebrity endorsements (all unpaid) and worldwide sales reaching $176 million – up 4,000 per cent in ten years.

One of the reasons they are so popular is they remain Made in Canada and resisted temptation to outsource to Asia to cut costs. More than ever, it seems, people will pay extra for authenticity. portfolio.

LIVING / STYLE

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Humidity: 60%

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PORTFOLIO.

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The course also houses the highest point in the Maldives, Mount Vilingili, at a height of 5.1 metres.

The pro shop carries golf equipment and apparel, and the course is open from 7am until 7pm.

OctOber issue 118

beach look

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accessories

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Tom Ford, Louis sunglasses $405

77 Dr. No by Ian Fleming $9

TAG Heuer F1 McLaren watch $1,510 Lacoste canvas slip-ons $68

Portfolio.

living / Style

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what to pack ...for changeble weather this month in Tokyo, and beyond

Average temp

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78

Three shops to seek out in Tokyo for Japanese clothing brands

Portfolio.

Fethers GoFFa X High-end vintage clothing from the store that has been an Osaka staple for years and finally openend an outlet in Tokyo. Perfect for obscure, vintage items nobody back home will be wearing. fethersgoffa.com

tsumori Chisato A graduate of the Issey Miyake design company, she may be international now but her boutique in Aoyama is worth a visit for the latest 'bohemian cuteness' designs from the Japanese style star. tsumorichisato.com

samantha thavasa Despite US outlets and endorsement by the likes of Miranda Kerr, the best place to pick up something from that Japanese handbag brand (pictured right) is still in Tokyo itself. global.samantha.co.jp

OctOber issue 118

accessories

city look

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Kate Spde bold bloom earings $120

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Jimmy Choo printed soft iPhone 6 case $62

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79 1. Dress with velvet panels and contrasted details byThe Kooples $331 2. Daddy x Garance DorĂŠ silk blouse

by Equipment $298 3. Kate Spade fox-design clutch $298 4. Doade rain boots by Bally $440 5. Sophie Hulme bag at Harvey Nichols $595 6. MoMA sky umbrellla $58

Tokyo: 29 Walks in the World's Most Exciting City $16

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october living / advice

tips from the top

issue 118

Simon Westcott CEO and Owner at Luxe City Guides

Visit High-altitude Argentinian winery Bodega Colome is a hair-raising four-hour drive north of Salta. It also houses the world’s largest, and leastvisited, museum dedicated to the work of American light artist, James Turrell. Magical.

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Dzongkha mixes vetiver with delicate lychee and spiced tea tones; Mechant Loup is woody and suitably sexy.

Travel Travel like a local, gents. Try having a haircut or wet shave when you travel; barbers are great gossips and it’s a sure-fire fast-track to laughing with locals.

Book Michael Cunningham is perhaps best known for his ‘Virginia Woolf’ novel, The Hours, but Flesh and Blood, his second book, is a tender and terrifying journey through three colourful generations of a Greek immigrant family. It’s the elusive Great American Novel.

The new LUXE City Guides App is available now. luxecityguides.com Portfolio.

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october living / food

issue 118

Top table French technique, Japanese style, Nordic influence

M

artin Benn is currently the chef wowing Australia, despite being a ‘Pom’.

Born in Hastings, England, he started at the Oak Room in London learning French gastronomy under Michel Lorrain. He then worked under the tutelage of Marco Pierre White at the famed Criterion Restaurant before moving to Australia in 1996. There he spent time at Tetsuya’s, learning the fundamentals of Japanese cuisine from Tetsuya Wakuda and became head chef there at just 25 years old. He opened Sepia in 2009, and his menu is now the product of his time spent learning from some of the best. Right now, Sepia is as 2015 as food gets and stands tall as one of the great restaurants for modern dining in Australia, or frankly anywhere.

sepia, sydney

1

tunA with KAtSuobuShi Red elk leaves

Ichibandashi jelly on top of a bed of tuna.

Shaved katsuobushi

Diced yellow fin tuna

Miso mustard

Thickened Tamari soy sauce Amaranth leaves

201 Sussex St. Sydney 2,000

sepiarestaurant. com.au

 SYD

2

bonito SAShiMi A brilliantly simple and artfully present seared bonito (which has become a great alternative to tuna) with jamon and lemon myrtle jelly and a light topping of pickled red radish. A balance of Japanese food and French presentation.

3

Alpine StrAwberry Meringue

Strawberry meringue sticks, placed on a mangosteen and Champagne chiboust base and presented with Alpine strawberries and dusted sherbet powder.

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Chef’S reCoMMendAtion | Martin Benn’s pick of three restaurants to try 1. le bernardin (New York) “Quintessential New York fine dining at its best.”

2. Chef’s table at brooklyn fare (New York) “Brilliant and unique, a compelling dining experience.”

3. den (Tokyo) “Whimsical and totally Japanese delicious cuisine by Chef Zaiyu Hasegawa.”

Portfolio.

october living / food

G

Gary Rhodes The British chef on his love for a Parisian classic

uy Savoy stands out among the many, many, other top restaurants I’ve been to. I do hope I’ll eat better one day, but it was so good at Guy Savoy I think that will be difficult. I’ve now made six visits there over the years and I just want to go back time and again, it really is sensational.

It’s a three Michelin Star restaurant and on each of the occasions I’ve eaten there, I’ve had all different little moments. I once had their globe artichoke soup with truffles and Parmesan as part of a tasting menu. It was served into a bowl with fresh black truffles lightly shaved onto the top, and a couple of shavings of Parmesan. With it were toasted brioche buns that had been halved and presented with a little pot of the richest truffle butter. It just melted into the warm bread and you were encouraged to dip that into the soup.

The artichoke soup was so smooth and fine and yet when you took one spoonful of it the flavour just exploded. I was there with my right-hand man Wayne and we both just put down our spoons and looked at each other with expressions of glee, like two little

Guy savoy paris

The besT place i’ve eaTen

issue 118

Monnaie de Paris, 11 quai de Conti, 75006, Paris

guysavoy.com

 CDG

Top right: The Library room at the restaurant Right: Guy Savoy

schoolboys. It was just a sensation to eat. You had the piquancy that was provided by the slivers of Parmesan combined with the earthy, richness of the truffle. Incredible.

Another dish was a grilled turbot with steamed spinach and a poached egg. It came out looking very simple, with a piece of turbot, a few softened leaves of spinach and then a soft egg.

But it was served on a perforated plate so when you finished, they lifted the plate and there underneath was a turbot soup created from all the juices from the fish and the yolk. You give it a little stir and then you’re eating something that takes you on to another level.

I would recommend to anybody to go and try it. It’s expensive and you have to get to Paris to try it but it’s one continual journey of flavours.

Even when you’re looking at their menu degustation it says eight or nine courses but you end up having up to 15 because he keeps bringing other bits and pieces. You may get a tiny slice of apple tart, and this is the thinnest apple tart you can imagine, but it’s incredible. And at the end you even get a little bag of goodies to take home.

Save up your money and go because we can all go out and eat reasonable food at a reasonable price anywhere in the world. However, this is a one-off experience. Some of the dishes I had there 15 years ago, and I still talk about them now, and can almost taste them on my palate as I describe them. For me, it’s worth every single euro and I wouldn’t think twice about going back.

For Gary Rhodes dishes in Dubai visit Rhodes W1 at Grosvenor House for British classics and Rhodes Twenty10 at Le Royal Méridien for steak.

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October living / get away

issue 118

stylish Extras Globe-trotter Safari suitcase $1,964

Mid-century getaway

If you and up to nine friends fancy a touch of old Hollywood glamour for your next getaway, then Bing Crosby’s old Rancho Mirage villa in Palm Springs is now available for hire

B

uilt in 1957, crooner Bing Crosby’s luxury estate is in what was one of the most sought-after neighbourhoods in America ‒ Thunderbird Heights.

The likes of Frank Sinatra and Lucille Ball lived in the area, but it would come to be better known as ‘Playground of the Presidents’.

While only Gerald Ford actually lived there, the area has long been a regular retreat for US presidents who court donors, play golf at Thunderbird Country Club or, in the case of JFK in 1962, allegedly have trysts with Marylyn Monroe here at Bing’s villa.

Bing was a Republican too, he would have been livid.

Rancho Mirage, despite some renovation after Bing’s death, is still an

Palm Springs, USA

Price

$4,080 to $21,210 per night

Size 7,000sq ft

luxuryretreats.com

 LAX

authentic one-level ode to mid-century modern design and that Fifties and Sixties glamour.

The five-bed home includes a screening room built as a tribute to Crosby’s ‘Road to…’ movies with other Hollywood memorabilia and photographs throughout.

The 7,000sq ft property is set on 1.4 acres and has a pool, barbecue area, fire pit and putting green. But really, it’s all about the knowledge that you’re taking a break just like an Old Hollywood star.

Or mischievous president.

For those who are looking for their musicians to be a bit more modern, note that this residence is nearby to Coachella and it was here last year that Daft Punk stayed before playing at the music festival.

Miu Miu Fiftiesinspired wool and cotton blend boucletweed dress. $2,800

Bailey of Hollywood Billy Fedora $60

87 Vintage 1958 Omega Constellation.

Around $1,750

Portfolio.

living / staying in

Me Milan il Duca

Where to stay

Piazza della Republica13, 20124 Milan

Price From $335 per night

Meliax.com

 MXP

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Portfolio.

I

f there were a city that suited the ME by Meliá brand then it’s the Italian fashion capital of Milan. For a blend of contemporary luxury and style, the Spanish hotel group has been setting the standard over the last few years and this latest addition, which opened in May of this year, is exemplary.

Centrally located in the Piazza della Repubblica shopping area, and just north of Brera, the city’s design district, the building ME Milan Il Duca occupies was originally for a hotel designed by Pritzker Prizewinning Italian architect Aldo Rossi.

The facade remains but the interior has been totally renovated and now includes furniture by leading designers, inlcuding Luca Meda, while throughout the hotel there are piece of original artwork by photographer Alberto Van Stokkum and other installations that give the spaces unique feel.

It now offers 132 modern rooms, including 32 Chic Suites, a Personality Suite and a Suite ME. The latter includes an ‘adult playroom’ with pool table (see left), kitchen and terrace.

OctOber issue 118

in the hotel Bar

gym

For guests staying in a suite the ME+Aura service is co-ordinated by the Aura Manager who can assist with private in suite check-in and check-out, 24-hour personal assistance, personalised welcome gift, stereo system and custom playlist, Play Station/Nintendo Wii with personalised selection of games, free high speed Wi-Fi, packing and unpacking service, ironing service, priority access to exclusive stores, bars and special events, complimentary in-room bar and even welcome gifts for dogs. Yes, the hotel amenable to furry travellers.

One welcome new addition is

a roof terrace, with the alfresco restaurant until 6pm and great views over Piazza della Republicca, the business district and city beyond.

Much like the rooftop bar in their London hotel, it’s already become a spot for locals as well as guests.

The addition of Italy’s first branch of Manhattan steakhouse STK is also making it a destination hotel.

This is the seventh ME by Meliá hotel and further outlets in Miami, Barcelona, Dubai, Doha and Caracas are on the way. Right now though, the ME by Meliá brand is the flagbearer for contemporary luxury and style in city hotels.

Each suite has two 60” TVs for lounge and in-bed viewing

eat

extra touch

The rooftop bar is the only one in the Piazza della Repubblica area and has great views over the Milanese skyline. Also a great spot for lunch.

24-hour Technogym equipment with integrated TV monitor with touch screen and Vision Web to stay connected with all the social media pages, TV and music.

The hotel is home to an STK restaurant.

A huge success in Manhattan, they’ve transfered the modern steakhouse in a lounge stetting concept to Milan.

Complimentary pet amenity for those travelling with furry animals.

Unpacking service.

Library in the reception area.

Play station / Nintendo Wii with games of your choice (upon request)

places of interest in the area eat

invest

If you want to eat out of the hotel, the Ristorante Piazza Repubblica is a five-minute walk (400m) and specilises in modern-Italian with menu based on the white truffle ‒ in season from later this month.

A 15-minute walk (or five mins in a cab) to the Corso Venezia, where the designer shops are located. At number 14 is De Padova, a store full of beautifully designed objects, notably furniture. Yes, they ship.

shop

culture

89 Cavalli E Nastri is the place for vintage designer clothing. It’s all in near-boxfresh condition and there are usuallly great items to be found.

They also have an outlet for men. cavallienastri.com

On until the end of the month is the “Arts & Foods – Rituals since 1851” exhibition. It presents artworks ranging in style from Impressionism and Pointillism up to Pop Art. Come hungry. expo2015.org

Portfolio.

october issue 118

living / first person

Humanness

So what does it mean to be human? By Douglas Coupland

Let’s quickly discuss larger mammals.

Take dogs: We know what a dog is, and we understand “dogginess.”

Look at cats: We know what cats are and what “cattiness” is. Now take horses.

Suddenly it gets harder. We know what a horse is, but what is “horsiness”? Even my friends with horses have trouble describing horsiness to me. And now take humans: What are we? What is “humanness”?

It’s sort of strange, but here we are, seven billion of us now, and nobody really knows the full answer to these questions. One undeniable thing we humans do, though, is make things, and through these things we find ways of expressing humanness ‒ ways we didn’t previously know of.

The radio gave us Hitler and the Beach Boys. Barbed wire and air-conditioning gave us western North America. The Internet gave us a vanishing North American middle class and kitten GIFs. It’s said that new technologies alienate people, but the thing is, UFOs didn’t land and hand us new technologies ‒ we made them ourselves, and thus they can only ever be, well, humanating. And this is where we get to AI. People assume that AI, or machines that think, will have intelligence alien to our own, but that’s not possible. In the absence of benevolent space aliens, only we humans will have created any nascent AI, and thus it can only mirror, in whatever manner, our humanness or specieshood. So when people express concern about alien intelligence, or the Singularity, what I think they’re really expressing is angst about those unpretty parts of our collective being that currently remain unexpressed but will become, somehow, dreadfully apparent with AI.

As AI will be created by humans, its interface will be anthropocentric, just as AI designed by koala bears would be koalacentric. This means AI software will be humankind’s greatest coding kludge, as we try molding it to our species’ specific needs and data. Fortunately, anything smart enough to become sentient will probably be smart enough to rewrite itself from AI into cognitive simulation, at which point our new AI could become, for better or worse, even more human. We all hope for a Jeeves & Wooster relationship with our sentient machines, but we also need to prepare ourselves for a Manson & Fromme relationship; they’re human too.

Personally I wonder whether the software needed for AI will be able to keep pace with the hardware in which it can live. Possibly the smart thing for us to do right now would be to set up a school whose sole goal is to imbue AI with personality, ethics, and compassion.

It’s certainly going to have enough data to work with, once it’s born. But how best to deploy your grade-six report card, all of Banana Republic’s returned merchandise data for 2037, and all of Google Books?

With the start of the Internet, we mostly had people communicating with other people. As time goes by, we increasingly have people communicating with machines. We all get excited about AI possibly finding patterns deep within metadata, and as the push grows to decode those profound volumes of metadata, the Internet will become largely about machines speaking with other machines ‒ and what they’ll be talking about, of course, is us, behind our backs.

The Internet will become largely about machines speaking with other machines

90 Douglas Coupland is the author of books including Generation X, JPod and Microserfs

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