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Carmakers take the Valley
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In February, Franco-Japanese car behemoth Renault-Nissan opened a new, 26,000-square-foot research center in, of all places, Sunnyvale, Calif. It turns out that it is joining a long list of auto companies that have recently opened or expanded R&D shops in Silicon Valley. The Bay Area’s pool of technical talent has long attracted outside industries. But recent advances in Internet-enabled cars, electric vehicles, and driverless automobiles—not to mention local firms Google and Tesla — are fueling automotive innovation here.
In the latest issue of Fortune magazine.
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Tech companies: N.Y.C. catching up to the Bay Area
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When Mayor Michael Bloomberg pledged to end New York’s overdependence on Wall Street, the city responded by becoming the country’s fastest-growing digital-technology hub. Despite less-than-stellar access to a reliable broadband network, New York now hosts over 1,800 tech companies. The city overtook Boston to become the country’s second-largest tech center, after Silicon Valley, this year. This map shows the Big Apple’s ecosystem of startups, venture capital firms, incubators, digital-media companies, and educational institutions.
In the latest issue of Fortune Magazine.
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A look at the global gender pay gap
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Fair pay and employment for women are not feminist issues; they’re economic ones. Data from a recent World Economic Forum report displays just how essential equal wages can be. A nation’s competitiveness is determined by its talent pool; ignore half the pool and the economy suffers. In the latest issue of Fortune.
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World largest corporations mapped
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Despite financial turmoil in Europe and disasters in Japan, the world’s largest corporations had record profits and revenue in 2011. Where on earth will the growth come from next?
The fortune global 500 used to be a scorecard by which Western companies measured their dominance. Today the list is more diverse than ever. Our map shows the headquarters cities of the list companies, layered over data showing each country’s gains in gross national income from 2000 to 2010. This suggests that the Global 500 isn’t just a way to measure corporate muscle—in some cases it is an indicator of prosperity too. -
Mapping the internet
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If the internet is a global phenomenon, it’s because there are fiber-optic cables underneath the ocean. Light goes in on one shore and comes out the other, making these tubes the fundamental conduit of information throughout the global village. To make the light travel enormous distances, thousands of volts of electricity are sent through the cable’s copper sleeve to power repeaters, each the size and roughly the shape of a 600-pound bluefin tuna.Once a cable reaches a coast, it enters a building known as a “landing station” that receives and transmits the flashes of light sent across the water. The fiber-optic lines then connect to key hubs, known as “Internet exchange points,” which, for the most part, follow geography and population.
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The majority of transatlantic undersea cables land in downtown Manhattan where the result has been the creation of a parallel Wall Street geography, based not on the location of bustling trading floors but on proximity to the darkened buildings that house today’s automated trading platforms. The surrounding space is at a premium, as companies strive to literally shorten the wire that connects them to the hubs.
In the latest issue of Fortune Magazine, with Andrew Blum’s text. Many thanks to Dave Drazen from GeoTel LLC for providing the data sets.
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Shell bets billions to drill for oil in Alaska
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Shell says that it expects the 410 Alaskan offshore leases it holds in the Arctic to become the company’s biggest source of crude oil globally within 10 to 20 years. Were it to capture just a 10th of the oil in the Chukchi and Beaufort seas, Shell would, over time, add 2.7 billion barrels to its proven reserves. To put that number into perspective, Shell’s total proven reserves of oil stood at 4.3 billion barrels at the end of 2011. Given Shell’s perpetual need to find new reserves large enough to replace what it pumps, the company must aim high when it comes to exploration, says Clint, the Bernstein analyst. “Adding 200 million barrels in new reserves doesn’t move the needle for an oil company as big as Shell,” Clint says. “They really have no choice but to push into the big, unexplored basins like the Arctic.”
In the latest issue of Fortune magazine. -
Charlotte just fine after the bank crisis
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Charlotte is a corporate town. Counting its suburbs, it’s still home to eight Fortune 500 companies and is still very much the country’s other banking center.
Thanks to Jamie Metz from the Mecklenburg county GIS division for the help with the data. In the most recent issue of Fortune magazine.
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The booming shipping network
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Not since 1956, when a North Carolina truck driver named Malcom McLean created a standard-size container for cargo, has global shipping seen such radical change. Carriers are bigger than ever, ports are becoming automated, and routes are shifting. The volume of goods that move between ports in Asia now accounts for 13% of all seaborne trade, up nearly a third from a decade ago. Routes through the ice-free far north now beckon. While global shipping volumes rose 6.2% in 2011 and port operators were profitable, owners of container ships were hit hard by overcapacity and falling cargo rates. In the latest issue of Fortune magazine..
