Independent business & technology journalGlobal desk · July 2026Read with context

Business & markets

Divya Menon

13 stories · Markets · Technology · Business · Startups

Divya covers the money side of technology: the fortunes, the fundraising and the frontier labs. She has written the Sam Altman, Jeff Bezos and Paytm files, and the annual rich-list analysis.

How we report and correct Contact the desk

Markets

The Richest People in India 2026: The New Billionaire Class

From Mukesh Ambani and Gautam Adani to a rising generation of founders, here is who sits at the top of India's wealth in 2026 — and how they got there.

Technology

Sam Altman: The Man Steering OpenAI Toward Artificial General Intelligence

How Sam Altman took OpenAI from research lab to the company behind ChatGPT — and survived a boardroom coup that nearly ended his tenure.

Business

Jeff Bezos: The Long Game Behind Amazon and Blue Origin

Jeff Bezos built Amazon on a philosophy of relentless customer obsession and long-term thinking. Now his focus turns to space.

Startups

Vijay Shekhar Sharma: The Bet That Put a Payments App in Every Indian Pocket

From a small town to the founder of Paytm, how Vijay Shekhar Sharma rode India's digital-payments revolution — through its highs and hard corrections.

Business

Kumar Mangalam Birla: Modernising a Century-Old Business Dynasty

Thrust into leadership at 28, Kumar Mangalam Birla transformed the Aditya Birla Group into a global conglomerate spanning metals, cement and retail.

Startups

Byju Raveendran: The Rise and Fall of India's Most Valuable Startup

A cautionary tale for the startup era: how Byju's became a global edtech giant, and how fast a growth-at-all-costs empire can unravel.

Markets

Larry Fink: The Man Managing the World's Money

As co-founder of BlackRock, Larry Fink built the world's largest asset manager — and turned index investing into a force that shapes markets everywhere.

Business

Andy Jassy: The Cloud Architect Now Running All of Amazon

Andy Jassy built Amazon Web Services into a profit engine, then took over from Jeff Bezos to lead one of the world's biggest companies.

Business

Jack Ma: The Teacher Who Built China's E-Commerce Giant

Jack Ma founded Alibaba and became the face of China's internet boom — before stepping back from public life at the height of his influence.

Technology

Marc Benioff: The Evangelist Who Sold the World on the Cloud

Marc Benioff founded Salesforce on the radical idea that software should be delivered over the internet — and built a cloud-computing empire.

Markets

Codie Sanchez: Getting Rich on the 'Boring' Businesses Everyone Ignores

Laundromats, car washes, vending routes — Codie Sanchez built a following by championing the unglamorous small businesses that quietly print cash.

Agri-business

The Farmer Who Out-Margined the Supermarket

Jonas Hakala took over a struggling family farm and turned it into one of the most profitable food businesses in the Nordics — without ever selling to a chain.

Markets

Markets 2030: Where the Next Decade is Hiding

The next ten years of opportunity won't come from the obvious sectors. Here's the map we're using to look sideways.