James Silver is a journalist, editor & screenwriter. As a reporter, he specialises in tech, media and business. Formerly at BBC News, he has written for, among others, The Guardian, The Observer and WIRED.
Food tech wasn’t a thing in 2006 when Just Eat set up shop in a one-bedroom flat in east London, writes James Silver in an edited extract from his book Upscale, about British tech entrepreneurs
As soon as Seedcamp makes a new investment, it invites the startup-in-question’s founders and core team members to ‘Basecamp’ – essentially a crash course in early stage business fundamentals.
From sourcing talent to finding customers, managing company culture to assembling a board, these are the best ways to grow your startup .
In a testosterone-laden field, many leaders hide their anxieties to avoid looking weak …
The TV industry is in the grip of a series of mega-mergers.
From forecourt to scrapyard, a new car in the UK lasts an average of 13.9 years, which is why if you got one today, it might very well be the last car you buy.
The phone call that would, just hours later, inflict a highly damaging blow to Donald Trump’s presidential ambitions came through to Washington Post reporter David Fahrenthold mid-morning on Friday 7 October.
A decision over the U.K.’s future membership in the European Union is now just days away, with latest polls indicating a race to the wire.Among the most fearful of a potential Brexit is big business
Individuals based at home or in remote offices, scattered anywhere in the world, are part of a rising phenomenon called distributed working.
In a production office a few metres from the designer boutiques and tourists on the Rue Royale in Paris, Pascal Breton, a veteran French TV-drama producer, shifts restlessly in his chair as he describes his
Marseille, an eight-episode Netflix Original series about power and corruption is due in late 2015.
If you want to get an idea of how the UK public sector came to spend £17 billion per year — that’s the equivalent of 30-odd new hospitals — on information technology as recently as
Square, the first start-up to enable self-employed professionals and small merchants to accept card payments via smartphones and tablets,processed payments of over $10 billion in 2012.
From accommodation to cars, the internet is turning us from consumers into providers and challenging established business models.
By James Silver, July 8, 2013 Competition from online commerce will force highstreet stores to cut back dramatically on physical space as the retail industry struggles to reboot itself for a new era, predicts David
The advertising technology company hopes digital ads will continue to fund great journalism By James Silver, The Guardian, Sunday 16 June 2013 18.08 BST
Brian O’Kelley is an unlikely saviour of newspapers.
The fast-growing P2P lodging marketplace is clearly eating into the business of hotels and, according to some arguments, is even starting to impact property values.
TaskRabbit announces it will expand into the UK, at Le Web London 2013.
A New Twist On The Sharing Economy: Peace And Quiet On Demand
Submitted by James Silver on June 6, 2013
Zigzagging the stage at Le Web London 2013 as he pitched his new startup Breather
Submitted by James Silver on June 6, 2013
The fast-growing P2P lodging marketplace is clearly eating into the business of hotels and, according to some arguments, is even starting to impact property values.
By James Silver, Contributing Writer, on May 24, 2013
An invited audience drawn from 50 high-growth companies and investors gathered at the Irish Embassy in London on May 22nd to hear a panel discussion organized
Do you use the same password for all websites? Do you overshare on Facebook? If so, you’re a target for cybercriminals – whose computer scams are costing Britain £27bn a year.
Interview with Dmitry Grishin,
By James Silver
There’s something of the Victorian freak show about the World Maker Faire — a three-day annual makers’ jamboree held at the New York Hall of Science in Queens
INTERVIEW The man in charge of the John Lewis Partnership tells James Silver how his company is bucking the economic trend to be Britain’s retail success story
When the John Lewis Partnership announced its most
OVERVIEW The UK is well positioned as a front runner in the online revolution in retail sales, writes James Silver
We know the UK’s economic backdrop only too well.
By James Silver,
An ever-growing number of tech incubators and accelerators select start-ups based on the strength of their teams, rather than their business ideas, which frequently fizzle out in their earliest iterations.
by James Silver,
April 2nd 2013.
The Coalition for a Digital Economy (Coadec) is an independent non-profit lobbying group which represents tech start-ups and entrepreneurs to government on policy and regulatory issues.
By James Silver
Bolt, a Boston-based accelerator programme for hardware companies, will aim to hothouse promising startups in the space and take them from idea to store shelves.
Beppe Grillo has achieved a stunning success in the Italian elections with the performance of the new citizens’ protest network – the Five Star Movement.
He is its guiding star, a comedian-turned politician.
Digital Or Die: An Interview With WPP’s Mark Read
Submitted by James Silver on March 1, 2013
Global digital advertising spend broke through the $100 billion barrier last year, according to eMarketer, meaning that desktop
By James Silver
Contributing Writer
With their beanbags, primary-color decor and the obligatory table-football areas, tech start-up workplaces have long become something of a self-parody.
Designer Tom Ford has become a brand in his own right.
By James Silver
Contributing Writer.
Tech City: two years in, how is east London’s technology hub faring?
David Cameron launched his vision for a cluster of high-growth startups in the capital two years ago.
30th May 2012.
By James Silver
Back in February 2009, Kristian Hiiemaa, then 29, bootstrapped Erply, a business-software startup, with three other developers in Tallinn, Estonia.
By James Silver.
24th February 2012.
School number 1409 lies about ten kilometres north of Moscow city centre, in an exclusive enclave of gated communities.
AUTOPIA
05 JULY 11
by JAMES SILVER
Genevieve Bell (above) is an anthropologist whose people-watching informs next-generation computer chips.
SILICON ROUNDABOUT
07 JANUARY 11
by JAMES SILVER
David Cameron wants to boost London’s startups by building a “Tech City” on the Olympic site.
FLATTR
14 DECEMBER 2010
by JAMES SILVER
The cofounder of the Pirate Bay wants to monetise appreciation
In April 2009 the Finnish-Norwegian Pirate Bay cofounder Peter Sunde Kolmisoppi, 31, was found guilty — with three
AARDMAN
02 NOVEMBER 2010
by JAMES SILVER
The stop-frame creators of Wallace and Gromit have embraced the digital age.
DATA
05 AUGUST 2010
by JAMES SILVER
24 hours into his deployment in Haiti, as part of the Red Cross’s first rotation after January’s 7.0-magnitude earthquake flattened much of Port-au-Prince, Kjeld Jensen was busy making
Vittorio Sgarbi, the mayor of Salemi
The Kate Middleton affair has put the spotlight on the extraordinary cat-and-mouse game that the press and the young royals play By James Silver, The Guardian, Monday 15 January 2007
Rain pattered on the white
‘I had no idea what a news story was’ — Peter Oborne, former Spectator political editor, has abandoned the office and become one of New Labour’s most feared political commentators.
“The future is easy – and orange: He might have taken a slight knock with the too-bright colour of the easyCruise hull, but that won’t stop the irrepressible Stelios for long, finds James Silver.
She’s been shot at, almost blown up and has serious health problems, yet she still covers the world’s trouble spots with her trademark stoicism.
Max Clifford’s kiss-and-tell stories of politicians, pop stars and footballers are the lifeblood of many a tabloid newspaper.
Every day more than 500 people are reported missing in the UK, and although most are found within 72 hours, thousands every year are never seen again.