Crimson Rose: ‘Burning Man shows people a different way of looking at what they do’

Every August, a pop-up city named Black Rock City is built in the middle of the desert in the US state of Nevada. During ten days, Black Rock receives a total influx of 70 thousand people, the maximum allowed by the authorities. They come for an event that is hard to describe, a mixture of art show, dance camp and spiritual retreat named Burning Man. When two friends, Larry Harvey and Jerry James, started it in 1986, it wasn’t an event. They just had an idea of building a straw man and burning it on the beach. It was the way in which people reacted — playing with the “man”, singing and dancing — that convinced them they had to do it again the next year, and the year after that, and so on, until the crowd had become too big for the beach and they decided to move it to the desert. Burning Man has attracted a number of Silicon Valley executives, including Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, Sergey Brin and Larry Page, the founders of Google. and Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg. What attracts tech leaders to an artistic, spiritual event? “I think they were drawn to something that was a little different than what they’re used to doing”, says Crimson Rose, founding board member of the Burning Man Project. She spoke with LSE Business Review’s managing editor, Helena Vieira, on 9 November during Web Summit, in Lisbon

Hacking the market: Systemic contagion from cybersecurity breaches

The average stock market reaction in the 10 days after a cyber attack has become increasingly negative, write Constantin Gurdgiev and Shaen Corbe

Clarence Blay: 'Ghana has 140,000 mobile money agents versus 1,300 bank branches'

The most famous mobile payments system in Africa, MPesa, allows users to make payments by sending text messages from simple mobile phones, not necessarily smart ones. The idea has started a new wave of mobile payments and transfers in the continent, and governments are taking steps to help this ingenious solution usher in a new era of financial inclusion for their countries. Clarence Blay, who manages oversight and risk assessment for the Bank of Ghana’s Payment Systems Department, says that the Ghanaian government is now working on a national biometric identification programme coupled with a new national address system, which he believes will make it much easier for people to obtain credit, insurance and savings services. “Ghana has almost 140,000 active mobile money agents versus about 1,300 bank branches,” he told LSE Business Review managing editor Helena Vieira during the Mobile Money and Financial Development Conference at LSE

Kate Brodock: ‘Some Silicon Valley firms are leaders in parental leave’

The CEO of Women 2.0 on her company's plans for tackling gender inequality in the tech worl

Nicole Eagan: “Cybersecurity is very fast becoming an all-out arms race”

The CEO of Darktrace says organisations need to have AI act like the human immune syste

Nico Sell: ‘Stop giving away all your information for free on Facebook'

The founder of Wickr on data brokerage, why you won't find her on Facebook, and the letter she sent to Camero

Marc DaCosta: “Define your problem, then look at the data, not the other way around”

The Chairman of Enigma talks about the need for a holistic approach to the use of data by organisation

Book review: deconstructing Brad Pitt

The reactions evoked by images of and stories about Brad Pitt are many and wide-ranging: while one person might swoon or exclaim, another rolls his eyes or groans. How a single figure provokes such strong, often opposing emotions is a puzzle, one elegantly explored and perhaps even solved by Deconstructing Brad Pitt. This book allows the reader to enjoy the many analytical associations Pitt’s image makes possible, writes Helena Vieira

Julian David: 'We need to get the data issue right in the Brexit negotiations'

The CEO of techUK talks about the country's data economy and the difficulty of stopping data at the borde

Torbjörn Holmström: ‘We add automation when it helps our customers’ bottom line’

The Senior Advisor to the CEO and former CTO of Volvo Group talks about autonomous cars and truck