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Rami Tabbara, 40, co-founder and co-CEO speaks to me on Zoom from Stake’s “cool set-up” at the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC) located on Gate Avenue’s shiny financial and fintech district. He scans the camera around the office, to where his team are busying away behind the sce
If you visit Cool Inc.’s corporate website, you’ll discover it calls itself a chameleon due to the reptile’s ability to adapt to an ever-changing world. “The chameleon is distinctive and highly specialised,” the website rationalises, “He is charismatic and confident but maintains a powe…
Beirut-born chief executive Malek Sukkar speaks to me via video conference from his Dubai office looking ready to do business in a white shirt and dove-grey tie. It’s currently what he likes to call the Emirate’s “palatable season”. Behind him, the mid-afternoon sun streams throug…
In Silicon Valley, the buzz is all about eternal youth. Billionaires are pouring cash into immortality tech, the science of hacking old age and even death. Peter Thiel, co-founder of PayPal, has invested millions in the Methuselah Foundation, a non-profit that aims to make “90 the new 5…
The CEO of OnlyFans, Amrapali “Ami” Gan, is worried that you will have heard of her company but won’t understand what it does or how it works. “There’s been a lot of misconceptions about OnlyFans. Honestly, most people don’t even know what the business is.” And that is why, she confirms…
“The GameStop rally marked a crystallising moment for the online mob,” a technology reporter at The Washington Post wrote shortly after the dust had settled earlier this year, following a tumultuous swing of fortunes in which the equity price of the struggling American video game retail…
YOU’RE FROM COMO IN ITALY. YOU STARTED YOUR CAREER IN YOUR FATHER GIANFRANCO’S CLOTHING COMPANY IN THE US THEN CAME BACK TO ITALY AND CREATED YOUR OWN BRAND, NEW ENGLAND, WHICH YOU SOLD IN 2000. WHEN DID YOU BECOME THE CREATIVE DIRECTOR OF MONCLER? [Remo Ruffini] In 2000. MONCLER …
It’s a fact that nearly all tech startups set out with the intention of advancing human society. The reason why so many fail however, is not that their purpose was non-existent, but that their purpose was too narrow. Nicolas Zaatar and Charlie El Khoury, the Lebanese entrepreneurs…
The Modist may be no more, but back in February 2019 (issue 73), it was just two years old and definitely on the rise. So we spoke to Ghizlan Guenez, the founder of this conservative fashion e-retailer, as she was on a quest to dispel the notion that modesty means being frumpy or un-chi…
Bill Gates is not wearing a seatbelt. I worry about his safety as we speed along the cleared roads of Ethiopia’s capital, Addis Ababa, flanked by military outriders, but his aides either don’t notice or know not to mention it, so I decide I shouldn’t wear one either. The goats have been…
While catering to the Middle East’s conservative culture and insatiable appetite for marriage, startup dating app Harmonica wants to revolutionise dating in the Arab world. It’s crazy that just a few years ago, Internet dating meant tethering yourself to your computer, but thanks to the…
It’s a feel-good story with lots of happy endings. Toters has gone from startup app to thriving business in a couple of years, and it’s a stellar example of how hard work and great tech are more important than an original idea. Everyone has a great idea at some point or another in…