JUNE 12, 2023

NEXT GENERATION LEADERS

FLORENCE
PUGH
IS IN
CONTROL
+
9 MORE
TRAILBLAZERS
SHAPING A
BRIGHTER
FUTURE
Last year, Ben was too sick to dream.
He has Primary Immunodeficiency or PI.
Thanks to the Jeffrey Modell Foundation,
he has been properly diagnosed and treated.
Now he can search for the cure.

helping children reach for their dreams

info4pi.org
CONTENTS

2 Time June 12, 2023

 VOL. 201, NOS. 21–22 | 2023

7
The Brief
19
The View
30
Uh-Oh, AI
Charles Darwin anticipated
what makes artificial intelligence
an existential threat
By Dan Hendrycks

It’s never been more

important to slow down
By Katja Grace

China, the U.S., and the rest

of the world must convene
to set the rules
By Ian Bremmer

36
The
DeSantis
Project
Florida’s strongman governor has
made the state a blueprint for
conservative governance—and
his presidential campaign
By Molly Ball

46
Next
Generation
Leaders
Florence Pugh and nine other
young trailblazers showing
the way to a better world

59
Time Off

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3
FROM THE EDITOR

Redefining Argentina, and Australia, where Melanie Perkins,

a co-founder of tech platform Canva, recently
leadership pledged to give away a significant share of equity
in her giant startup company. “It was a really easy
decision,” she says. “How can you do the most
ONE OF MY FAVORITE STORIES FROM TIME’S good you can do with billions of dollars?”
history goes like this: As 1927 came to an end, Perkins’ drive to improve the world is shared
the editors seized the chance to correct a seri- by Brazil’s Rene Silva, who, as an 11-year-old,
ous oversight. They had failed to put Charles persuaded teachers at his school to let him join
Lindbergh on the cover to recognize the the student newspaper. That effort set him on
25-year-old’s remarkable solo flight over the a journey to launch a paper of his own, cover-
Atlantic, which he’d completed that May. On ing an entire favela. Today, Silva leads Voz das
what was otherwise a slow news week, they Comunidades, which is dedicated to telling and
gave themselves a mulligan, and for the first promoting stories that are frequently over-
Since TIME’s issue of 1928 named Lindbergh “Man of the looked in his country’s media.
founding, by Year,” creating what became one of the most
iconic franchises in journalism—what we know
a pair of 20- today as TIME Person of the Year.
somethings, Lindbergh remained the youngest individ-
we’ve known ual to receive the recognition until 2019, when
leadership 16-year-old Greta Thunberg was named Person
has no age of the Year. These two milestones remind us
that leadership has no age requirement. We’ve
requirement known that to be true since TIME’s founding a
century ago, by a pair of 20-somethings no less.
I suspect that is something our readers believe
as well: as I wrote in April, nearly half of you are
under the age of 35.
That is why I’m so pleased that over the past
nine years we’ve gotten the chance to intro-
duce you all to an impressive group of extra-
ordinary young people via TIME’s Next Genera-
tion Leaders list, made possible by our partners △
at Rolex. “To spend time with these individuals Photographer Mark Peckmezian works with
Florence Pugh in New York City on March 18
is proof of what is possible and what leadership
in its multitude of inspiring forms can look like
today,” says senior editor Emma Barker, who, Pugh, Perkins, and Silva join impressive
with senior editor Dayana Sarkisova, led the lat- leaders like activist Sage Lenier, who is leading
est installment of the project. a solutions-focused approach to the climate
On the cover, we feature Florence Pugh, a fight, and Ivorian American chef Roze Traore,
27-year-old British actor, whom we meet on the whose journey through the restaurant world
cusp of a breakout year with upcoming roles and exploration of family history has led
in two highly anticipated movies: Christopher him to the Ivory Coast, to create healing and
Nolan’s Oppenheimer and Denis Villeneuve’s community through food. Together, this class
Dune: Part Two. This is an extraordinary mo- joins the more than 175 individuals recognized
ment for Pugh, a performer who is starting to as TIME Next Generation Leaders since 2014.
climb the peaks of her profession. “Despite her At a moment when society’s problems can seem
youth, she has a drive and assurance,” says Ville- insurmountable, it is so inspiring to see these
neuve. “You feel you’re working with someone young leaders bring new perspectives and
who can absolutely go anywhere and do any- share fresh ideas.
thing emotionally in the most subtle and precise
way. She’s a raw diamond.”

THE NEXT GENERATION LEADERS list is, as al-

ways, a global undertaking, with TIME’s report-
ers and editors scouting what leadership looks
like across the planet. In this issue, we spend time Sam Jacobs,
with rising stars in places including South Korea, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
4 TIME June 12, 2023
ADVERTISEMENT
 CONVERSATION

On the covers

Illustration by Tim
O’Brien for TIME

TIME
Stamped
TIME is excited to announce
the launch of its newest
Jess Sibley and Verizon’s Hans Vestberg in TIME’s NYC headquarters product: TIME Stamped.
Photograph by Mark A product-recommendation
Peckmezian for TIME and e-commerce platform,
MESSAGE FROM THE CEO
TIME Stamped aims to

Eliminating barriers help readers decide which

services and purchases
are best for them in the
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getting 1 billion of the world’s most marginalized people con- SETTING THE RECORD STRAIGHT
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6 TIME June 12, 2023

 S

TURKEY’S STRONGMAN THE INSIDE STORY THE RISE OF ‘STRUCTURED

SURVIVES AGAIN OF IRAN’S REVOLT HYBRID’ WORK

PHOTOGR APH BY JAKE MICHAELS 7

THE BRIEF OPENER

E
VEN A VIRAL PANDEMIC social media safer for children. “I That’s what is missing here.”
was not enough to unseat 100% see this as a responsibility for The first step toward creating
what U.S. Surgeon General policymakers and technology com- those standards, he says, is to conduct
Dr. Vivek Murthy sees as panies,” he says. “Any company that more studies to better understand
“the defining public-health crisis of produces a product consumed by how children and teens are using so-
our time.” That designation, he says, kids has a fundamental responsibility cial media, and how their experiences
belongs to concerns about the mental to ensure it is safe.” can be made less harmful to their
health and well-being of Americans— The U.S. government’s role, he mental health.
especially among young people. says, should be to establish safety
On May 23, Murthy published an standards for content and usage for A CRITICAL PART of that effort rests
advisory warning that we don’t know technology companies to follow. with the technology companies,
enough about how social media in par- But such standards haven’t been many of which have been reluctant
ticular is impacting children’s emo- required for the two decades during or unwilling to share relevant data
tional states, brain development, and which social media platforms have from their platforms. “I hear from re-
social growth. become popular. The burden for searchers all the time that they are not
“I issued this advisory because ensuring that sites are safe and able to get full access to the data that
this is an urgent crisis,” Murthy tells appropriate for children therefore they need to fully understand the im-
TIME. After analyzing existing studies largely falls on parents. pact that these platforms are having
on social media’s effects and consult- “We don’t ask parents to inspect on children,” says Murthy. “As a par-
ing with experts, Murthy says there the brakes on cars that children will ent myself, I don’t want to feel that
aren’t enough data yet to determine ride in, or the ingredients in medica- there is information hidden from me
whether social media use is safe for tions that children use, or ask them about the impact products my kids
children and adolescents. But with to conduct chemical analyses of the are using may have on their mental
95% of teens ages 13 to 17, and 40% of paint used in toys made for children health and well-being.”
children ages 8 to 12, saying that they to make sure that they are safe,” says This kind of data could also
use a social media platform like Insta- Murthy. “We set standards and make identify practices that technology
gram or TikTok, Murthy issued a call sure that manufacturers meet them. companies use to promote continued
to action to better understand what and excessive use of their platforms,
social media is doing to the mental such as likes, comments, and
health of America’s young people.
Murthy acknowledges that chil-
‘I worry about auto-scrolling. Studies show that
prolonged engagement on social
dren gain some benefits from using the mental media often comes at the expense of
social media. The platforms can make
it easier to connect with others who health and other activities critical for children’s
health, like sleep and socialization.
share similar interests or experiences,
which can help young people under- well-being of But even without more data, Mur-
thy says policymakers and companies
stand and process difficult events like
loss and change. They can also expose our children.’ can start making immediate changes
to ensure that children aren’t harmed
them to new opportunities to learn by social media. These include creat-
—DR. VIVEK MURTHY,
about different places and ideas. U.S. SURGEON GENERAL ing and enforcing age minimums for
But the negative effects of social accounts and doing a better job of
media are becoming increasingly identifying potentially harmful con-
apparent—raising questions about
how safe the overall experience is and
whether the net effects are more bad of children’s feeds.
than good. Studies have found that “I acknowledge that companies
using social media can contribute to
anxiety, depression, and lower self-

expose them to harassment and abuse,

Murthy’s report says. Brain-imaging childhood, and every day, every
research also suggests that excessive
social media use could change the
brain in ways that mimic addiction. The bottom line is that “we have
The advisory also outlines how
parents, policymakers, research-
ers, and technology companies can
and should come together to make □
8 TIME June 12, 2023
 △
THE BULLETIN repression,” says Gonul Supporters of President
Tol, a Turkey expert at the
What Erdogan’s victory means Middle East Institute.
Erdogan celebrate
his re-election in
for Turkey—and the world NATO’S FUTURE While the al-
Istanbul on May 28

liance’s other members have

The Recep Tayyip eRdo- “a continuation of today,” condemned and imposed electoral autocracies. But
gan era lives on after the says Galip Dalay, an associ- sanctions on Russia in the whereas some of them have
longtime Turkish leader ate fellow at the London- aftermath of its invasion of been at loggerheads with
won the May 28 presiden- based Chatham House Ukraine, Turkey has contin- the West, Turkey maintains
tial runoff against oppo- think tank. Since first win- ued to steer its own course a delicate balancing act.
O P E N I N G PA G E : T H E N E W YO R K T I M E S/ R E D U X ; M U R T H Y: R I C K Y C A R I O T I — T H E W A S H I N G T O N

sition challenger Kemal ning as a pious heartland with the country. In 2017, Whether that continues will
P O S T/G E T T Y I M A G E S ; T U R K E Y: S E R G E Y P O N O M A R E V — T H E N E W YO R K T I M E S/ R E D U X

Kilicdaroglu. That Erdogan populist in 2003, Erdogan Ankara agreed to purchase largely depend on the U.S.
survived the biggest test to has consolidated power an S-400 missile-defense and, especially, the E.U.
his leadership in 20 years is through constitutional system from Moscow. Most “Is the West ready
remarkable given the state changes, eroded the coun- controversially, Ankara con- to confront a more
of Turkey’s economy and try’s democratic institu- tinues to block Sweden from authoritarian Turkey?” asks
lingering public anger over tions, and jailed opponents becoming NATO’s 32nd Tol, noting that Turkey
the government’s response and critics, many of them member. Though analysts hosts roughly 3.6 million
to earthquakes in Febru- journalists. expect Erdogan to eventu- Syrian refugees, and
ary that left at least 50,000 With five more years at ally lift Turkey’s veto, as he has blocked them from
people dead. But he has re- the helm, it’s unlikely that did with Finland, it will be crossing into Europe. “Or
tained his grip on a nation Erdogan will choose to re- only after leveraging public are they going to keep this
that can serve either as a verse Turkey’s democratic concessions. transactional relationship
bridge or an impediment. backsliding, even as the and say, ‘As long as Erdogan
republic marks its 100th A BOOST FOR AUTOCRATS keeps Syrian refugees in
CLOSE TO HOME For Tur- year. “When autocrats face Under Erdogan, Turkey Turkey, we can work with
key’s 85 million people, an unstable domestic con- has joined the ranks of the him, we can tolerate him’?”
Erdogan’s win means text, they double down on world’s most prominent —yaSMeeN SeRhaN
The Brief includes reporting by Sanya Mansoor, Simmone Shah, and Julia Zorthian 9
THE BRIEF NEWS

◁
Iranian protesters
on the street in
Tehran on Oct. 1

some sitting in their cars in the traffic.

They are not protesting anything, yet
they brave the tear gas, the shouts to
move along. They act as if it were just
another evening, but they’re also giv-
ing cover to protesters, who disappear
among them to escape the frenzied
charges of security forces.
This watchful sea—the silent ma-
jority known in Iran as “the gray
caste”—fills space vacated by fleeing
protesters, almost as if none were ever
there. Whenever a plainclothes agent
singles out a protester, cornering him
or her till reinforcements arrive, the
cars commence honking. Passersby
suddenly become immobile. Shouts
of “Let them go!” rise to deafening
WORLD levels, stunning the security forces,
How everyday Iranians and many a time giving the protesters
just enough time to slip away.
backed the revolt The people on the sidewalks and
BY KAY ARMIN SERJOIE in the cars—the people with responsi-
bilities, with families to support; the
people on whom the future of Iran will
Revolutions do not happen only in the streets. Yet the out- pivot—know how to bide their time,
side world knows the uprising in Iran almost entirely through waiting for the protests to produce
footage uploaded from camera phones—the thousands upon leadership, specific objectives, and
thousands chanting for the fall of the regime in cities and definite plans. At which point they
towns across the country, and the regime answering with ba- ‘The fire is just might step in and risk what little
tons and shotguns. There has been no window into the kitch- still there. the Islamic Republic has left them.
ens and courtyards where the country’s fate will be decided.
“I did not think a country could change so much in three It’s what in EvEry night at 9 the shouts begin.
months,” says journalist Kay Armin Serjoie, reflecting on Farsi we call From rooftops, balconies, and win-
returning to Tehran last September after a summer in Ger- dows of dark rooms, women and men,
many. Serjoie, who has covered his native country for more
“fire under and sometimes even children, huddled
than two decades, was not allowed to work as a reporter the ashes.”’ into the dark recesses to avoid inquisi-
while he remained in Iran. But he remembered what he saw. —PROTESTING tive eyes, shout, “Zan, zendegi, azadi”
And, since returning to Europe, he has written it down. STUDENT (Woman, life, freedom). It started days
after Mahsa Amini died in police cus-
On an OcTOber nighT, aT leasT 600 securiTy fOrces tody, arrested for how she wore her
are arrayed down a two-mile stretch of Tehranpars Street headscarf. Sometimes the chanting
that has been a focus of protests for weeks. Armor-clad goes for an hour.
police special forces hold intersections. Revolutionary In a middle-class Tehran neighbor-
M I D D L E E A S T I M A G E S/ I R A N W I R E / R E D U X

Guards on motorcycles swing clubs at protesters who stand hood, a man asks a 19-year-old neigh-
their ground. Middle-aged basijis stand outside mosques bor why he endangers his life every
and government buildings. night by leading chants in the street
The activists, meanwhile, are overwhelmingly young. and writing slogans on walls.
Many of the women let their hair flow free. The young man replies, “Since
Apart from the two sides, a bigger group circulates— To read we were born, we’ve seen how the re-
an almost unending sea of young families, elderly couples, Kay Armin Serjoie’s
full dispatch, go to
gime has been gradually sucking the
and passersby, some just walking up and down the street, time.com/eyewitness life out of our parents with inflation,
10 Time June 12, 2023
price hikes, limitations on social
and personal freedoms. If I have
to go, I prefer to go fast.”
A few nights later, the young
man goes out to spray-paint slo-
gans and does not come home.
His frantic parents search pris-
ons, police stations, hospitals,
and morgues. The neighbor is
moved—for now, only as far as
the window, where he joins the
nightly shouting. “When the time
comes,” he says, darkly, “I will
avenge the kid.”

The regime is waTched closely

for evidence of weakness. The evi-
dence is everywhere. Neighbor-
hoods that historically supplied
the militias that put down dissent
have themselves become hotbeds
of protest. But the regime is also
ruthless. The death toll compiled
by human-rights groups, 506 by
mid-December, does not take in
the grievously wounded. Young
women who have lost an eye to
bird shot post their new looks
proudly on Instagram. But their
assailants speed away.
On a cold December night, the
security forces on Tehranpars
begin closing up shop at 8 p.m.
The streets of major cities have
seemingly been, to some extent,
tamed. And yet, even as the num-
ber of protesters has fallen, the
gray caste continues to show up to
offer them cover. And stores that
in previous years pulled down
shutters at the first sign of trou-
ble are still open. At one, a young
man, out of breath from fleeing
police, pauses to share his frustra-
tions. “The problem is there is no
direction, no planning,” he says,
“With the murder the regime is
committing every night, the price
is too high for what is becoming a
blind revolt.”
And yet every night, the win-
dows still fly open. And the chants
begin.
“It’s not over,” says another
protester, a literature student in
her early 20s. “The fire is still
there. It’s what in Farsi we call
‘fire under the ashes.’” □
THE BRIEF NEWS

GOOD QUESTION the highest share of companies that are

Is everyone going fully flexible, with Oregon, Washington,
and Colorado topping the list; Arkansas,
back to the office yet? Alabama, and Louisiana had the highest
BY ALANA SEMUELS share of companies that are in the office
full time.
There are other signs, in addition to the
YOU MIGHT HAVE THOUGHT THAT BY MID-2023, WITH THE Flex Report, that five-day-a-week return-
pandemic officially over, people would be getting back to the to-office plans are not succeeding. Office
office. But the share of workers in the office full time dropped occupancy in the top 10 most populous
to 42% in the second quarter of 2023, down from 49% in the U.S. cities was just 49.9% of prepandemic
first quarter, according to the Flex Report, which collects in- levels the first week of May, according to
sights from more than 4,000 companies employing more than data from Kastle Systems, which tracks
100 million people globally. Meanwhile, the share of offices key-card swipes across 2,600 buildings.
with hybrid work arrangements hit 30% in the quarter, up One result of that trend is that consumer
from 20% the previous quarter. spending has plummeted in center cit-
“It certainly looks like hybrid is gaining share,” says Robert ies in places like New York, Los Angeles,
Sadow, the CEO and co-founder of Scoop Technologies, which and Washington, D.C.—while home values
puts out the Flex Report. in exurbs and suburbs have
Work is moving toward what continued to surge.
Sadow calls “structured hy-
brid,” in which there are a set THE COMMERCIAL real estate
number of days that people market hasn’t completely
are required to come into tanked yet because many
the office. The average mini- companies are signed into
mum days required is 2.53, long-term leases. What’s
with both two days and three more, the format of struc-
days being popular. Tuesday tured hybrid work means
is the most popular day re- employers can’t dramatically
quired, followed by Wednes- shrink their spaces yet. If
day and Thursday. Few every employee comes in the
offices require a Friday pres- same three days a week, the
ence, and only 24% require a company still needs the same
Monday presence. amount of space it did before
Of course, not all compa- 24% 72% 69% 58% the pandemic. Companies
nies are going to accept that just pay for empty office space
they can’t get employees to on the remaining days.
return to offices for which The share of days worked
they have to keep paying from home appears to have
rent. Tesla mandates full- stabilized at 30%—about five
time office attendance, JPMorgan Chase requires senior staff times what it was before the pandemic, ac-
to be in the office full time, and Apple is reportedly tracking cording to research by Nicholas Bloom,
employee attendance and threatening action against staff who a Stanford professor who studies remote
don’t come in. Workers at Disney are required to go into the work. That could be a good thing for em-
office four days a week, though thousands signed a petition ployees and employers: people who work
protesting the policy. Opponents argue that return-to-office from home are more productive and one-
policies disadvantage people of color and women who are dis- third less likely to quit than those who
criminated against in person, and make life more challenging don’t, Bloom finds.
T U R N E R : C H A R L E S C A R AT I N I — S YG M A /G E T T Y I M A G E S

for working parents who don’t want to waste hours commut- As technology advances, Bloom expects
ing and can’t afford nearby homes in today’s housing market. the share of people working from home
Workplace flexibility differs dramatically depending on to trend upward as technology advances.
the company’s industry, size, and location. Nearly 2 in 3 com- With better video calls, augmented real-
panies that have fewer than 500 employees are fully flexible, ity, and virtual reality, there may start to
meaning employees can be remote if they want, according be less of a difference between working
to the Flex Report. By contrast, only 13% of companies with in an office and being at home, he says.
more than 50,000 employees are fully flexible, though 66% do The office world that appeared unchange-
allow for structured hybrid work. able before the pandemic is different now.
States in the west and northeast parts of the U.S. have That much, at least, is pretty clear. □
12 TIME June 12, 2023
MILESTONES

DIED

AGREED

IMPEACHED

HONORED

IMPRISONED

SIGNED

DIED

EMPTIED

13
THE BRIEF 2030

BUSINESS

A ride-share app that

brings people along
BY CHARLIE CAMPBELL

The lunchTime rush is jusT bubbling aT Kedai Kopi

hawker center in Singapore’s Clementi neighborhood when
Anthony Tan strolls in. The co-founder and CEO of the
ride-hailing firm Grab orders himself a Horlicks malt drink,
sits at a Formica table, and takes a sweep of the bustling
vendors. One catches his eye: a stall selling nasi lemak, the
signature Malay dish of fragrant rice cooked in coconut
milk and pandan leaf. Back in 2012, Tan used to offer it to
taxi drivers gassing up in his hometown of Kuala Lumpur,
pitching his upstart service while they ate.
“But because we couldn’t afford to do a deal with the
petrol station, they chased us out,” Tan, 40, recalls. He de-
camped to a nearby sidewalk by fetid monsoon drains.
“It was so smelly,” he says. “But it was close enough to
shout over, ‘Hey uncle, do you want free nasi lemak?’”
In the years since, Grab has transformed from a
“street fighting” startup, as Tan puts it—scoring South-
east Asia’s biggest Nasdaq IPO in 2021, valued at around Mobility is in Tan’s genes. His
$40 billion. But that hasn’t kept Tan sequestered in his great-grandfather was a taxi driver
office. Opposite the nasi lemak stall is another for fiery and his grandfather an automo-
Peranakan seafood, where Tan pulled a four-hour shift tive tycoon. After attending Harvard
during the pandemic. With lockdowns decimating Grab’s Business School, Tan decided not to
ride-hailing business, it pivoted to food delivery, and Tan join the family business, Tan Chong
wanted to better understand vendors’ needs. He ended Motor, which his father runs, but to
up “cleaning live crabs and absolutely covered in bits of go it alone. Inspired by classmate and
shell and crab juice,” he laughs. “But I saw that when the Grab co-founder Tan Hooi Ling’s hor-
orders came out in English, the Chinese-speaking chefs rific experiences with Kuala Lumpur
couldn’t understand them. After that we made the tickets taxis—by some rankings the world’s
in both languages.” worst—Tan asked his dad to back
Tan’s anecdotes help to explain why Grab, with a mar- their ride-hailing venture but was told
ket cap of $12 billion, is one of Southeast Asia’s most valu- “your head is in the clouds,” he says.
able firms. Its green-attired delivery drivers are ubiquitous So he went to his mom, who thought
in over 500 cities across eight nations. Often compared the same but still agreed to back him.
to Uber, Grab is much more, fast becoming a fully fledged “Moms are amazing, right?” Still, for a
superapp, offering insurance, travel bookings, financial ser- young man born “with a silver spoon,”
vices, and more. Tan admits, the move was scary. “My
Tan envisages making Grab a “triple bottom line” com- dad basically disowned me,” he says.
pany, measuring success not only by its balance sheet but “I thought, I’m not going to grovel. I’m
also by its social and environmental impact, particularly going to fight and make sure we win.
through the financial services it now offers. Southeast Asia That was a pivotal moment.”
may be the world’s fastest-growing region economically, Whereas Uber took a cookie-
but those gains are uneven and 70% of the population is cutter approach to global expansion,
“underbanked,” not relying primarily on traditional banks. Grab’s growth was rooted in being
Tan’s pitch is that by bringing more small businesses into hyperlocal. In Cambodia, it offers
the digital economy, he can boost Grab’s earnings while tuk-tuks; in Indonesia, users ride pil-
fostering equality. “There are many ways you can build lion on motorcycle taxis. While Uber
social impact and create financial impact—they’re not launched delivery ice cream, which
mutually exclusive,” he says. “If you don’t build a society often arrived in a slushy mess in the
that’s stable, and you don’t uplift the bottom, it becomes unforgiving tropics, Grab rolled out
all of our problem.” Southeast Asia’s “king of fruits,”
14 Time June 12, 2023
 inflection point. While ride hailing ground to a halt, lock-
downs also meant that small businesses had no choice but
to embrace digitization. Buoyed by government stimulus
packages for small businesses, in just one year Grab added
over 600,000 merchants across the region, offering every-
thing from dog bowls to apple strudel. “The COVID crisis
became an opportunity for us,” says Tan.

It was also a lIfelIne for people like Suparno, 52, who

like many Indonesians uses one name. The father of three
owns a tiny fruit stall in Bali’s Taman Sari Market, which
overflows with lush mangosteen, papaya, and watermelon.
When Indonesia shut its borders during the pandemic,
tourism-reliant Bali suffered more than most, and Supar-
no’s trade fell 70%, he says. Struggling to feed his family,
he became the first vendor in Taman Sari to join GrabMart.
By selling his fruit via the app, and using its data-crunching
service to bundle in-demand items together, trade quickly
recovered to prepandemic levels. Today, practically every
business in Taman Sari displays a green GrabMart logo, and
Suparno plans to open a third stall.
But the leap to digital revealed other benefits. Suparno’s
business was previously cash-based, which meant carry-
ing around large wads—a risky proposition—or braving
long 9 a.m. queues at the bank before heading to the whole-
durian, which remains a huge
money spinner. But like any disrupter,
‘If you salers, by which time the best fruit had often been snapped
up. Now, any GrabMart sales Suparno makes before mid-
Grab has faced pushback. In Thailand, don’t night appear in his GrabPay account by 4 a.m., meaning he
where it operated illegally until rule uplift the can restock before the bank has even opened. “It helps a lot
changes in 2021, local taxi competi- because mornings are my busiest time,” he says.
tors held protests against Grab, bran-
bottom, it It demonstrates how better access to digital finan-
dishing placards of Tan in a coffin: becomes cial services helps small businesses compete, which Tan
“This job is not for the fainthearted.” all of our hopes will translate into higher revenue for his firm. Grab’s
Meanwhile, Grab’s shares now financial-services revenue grew 233% year over year in the
trade at less than a quarter of their IPO problem.’ first quarter of 2023, with loan disbursements up 45%. In
price. Tan puts this down to “timing,” —ANTHONY TAN, 2022, small merchants on Grab saw a 26% increase in av-
given the drying-up of cheap money. CEO, GRAB erage monthly earnings after a year on the platform. Still,
These setbacks haven’t deterred despite boasting over 32 million monthly users and expect-
Tan. Last August, Grab launched one ing revenue of $2.2 billion in 2022, Grab has yet to turn a
of Singapore’s first digital banks, in profit, with Tan expecting to finally break even by year’s
partnership with telecom firm Sing- end. “Grab’s success is also their problem,” says Jeffrey
tel, and is rolling out more across the Towson, an investor and consultant on digital strategy in
region. Interest is paid daily instead Asia. “They’re dominating the market, with high-frequency
of monthly, and small loans can be services, lots of engagement, which means lots of data. But
approved in minutes. For Tan, the they’re still struggling to get profitability, because that’s
need was made plain by a conversa- just the nature of the business they’re in.”
tion at church. A fellow parishio- Supplementing the low-margin ride-hailing sector with
ner confessed to spending a stint in higher-margin add-ons is a main driver behind Tan’s super-
Singapore’s Changi prison for being a app vision. He says it also helps merchants to boost their
loan shark’s goon, who would splash income through secondary services. Drivers can earn from
I L L U S T R AT I O N B Y P E T E R R YA N F O R T I M E

pig’s blood on debtors’ homes to in- deliveries but also by hosting advertising brokered via the
timidate them. “He said there were app, or wearing a helmet camera funneling data to Grab’s
thousands of people like him in own maps offering, which it sells to third parties like Ama-
Singapore,” says Tan. “It’s fundamen- zon Web Services. Last year, 72% of Grab’s drivers earned
tally wrong to charge somebody 20% from more than one of its services, while over a million took
a day interest, because you’re putting part in one of its 2,500 training and upskilling courses.
them in a real poverty trap.” “When we create more inclusion, society benefits,” says
The pandemic served as another Tan. “What’s good for society is good for business.” □
15
 H E A LT H

1. Take advantage of “free information”

BY ANGELA HAUPT

2. Compliment unique personal expression

3. Skip marriage, kids, and work queries

4. Respond generously

5. Exit the chat gracefully

I L L U S T R AT I O N S B Y B R O W N B I R D D E S I G N F O R T I M E

18 Time June 12, 2023

EXCERPT

FINDING
THE WORDS
BY ELLIOT PAGE

INSIDE

AFTER VIOLENCE, THE BITTERSWEET, SURREAL NONBINARY TONY NOMINEES ON

CHOOSING COMMUNITY COMFORT OF LGBTQ REALITY TV WHAT A WIN WOULD MEAN

19
THE VIEW

The first time I acknowledged I was trans, in the

properly conscious sense, beyond speculation,
was around my 30th birthday. Almost four years
before I came out publicly.
“Do you think I’m trans?” I’d asked a close
friend. They answered hesitantly, knowing
no one can come to that conclusion for someone
else, but they looked at me with a quiet recogni-
tion and said, “I could see that . . .” It was a light
shining through from under the door.
Then there was the time when I wasn’t the
one to bring it up. I was having a small party.
People jumped in the pool and huddled together
on outdoor furniture. My friend Star and I sat off
alone, catching up on the patio. I met Star when
we were making the first season of Gaycation—
she worked at a San Francisco clinic run by trans
women that offered health care and support for
those in the LGBTQ+ community who needed it.
Star and I connected, in that way where the
future flashes, an auspicious beginning. We
stayed in touch and became good friends. She
has experienced far more obstacles and barri-
ers than I have, yet she holds space for me, sup-
ports me, sees me. She’s a singer, and I remem-
ber being mesmerized by her voice when I first
listened to her album, Star. The lyrics of her song
“Heartbreaker” played on repeat in my mind for
weeks after:

I run away from feeling too good

I’m scared as hell you’d leave me if you knew
I run away from feeling too good
I’m scared as hell you’d leave me if you knew

At my party, we sat together on an oversize

chair, the splashes and music blending together
in the background. We spoke about gender. “too emotional.” I believe hysterical
I shared the degree of my discomfort, how even was the word he used.
when I was playing a role, I couldn’t wear femi- In March 2021, Page His words triggered a deep shame
nine clothes anymore. How I always struggled became the first I’d held since I could remember. I was
in the summer when layers were not an option out trans man to puzzled too—invalidating my own ex-
and the presence of my breasts under my T-shirt appear on the cover perience. How was I in so much pain?
forced me to incessantly crane my neck, sneak- of TIME Why did even slightly feminine cloth-
ing quick peeks down. I would pull on my shirt, ing make me want to die? I’m an actor,
my posture folded. Walking down the sidewalk, there shouldn’t be a problem. How
I’d glance at my profile in a store window, my could I be so ungrateful?
brain consumed. I tried to avoid my reflection. Imagine the most uncomfortable,
I couldn’t look at pictures, because I was never mortifying thing you could wear. You
there. It was making me sick. I didn’t want to be squirm in your skin. It’s tight, and
here. I wanted to be lifted out—the gender dys- you want to tear it off your body but
phoria slowly crushing me. you can’t. Day in and day out. And if
“It’s a role, you’re an actor. Why are you com- people learn what is underneath, who
plaining?” people would say. “I would wear a you are without that pain, the shame
skirt,” a straight, cis man said to me, playing If you or someone you will come flooding out, too much to
C AT H E R I N E O P I E

know may be experiencing

devil’s advocate. I kept trying to explain the dif- a mental-health crisis or hold. The voice says you deserve the
ficulty I was having. But he kept spitting out his contemplating suicide, humiliation. You are an abomination.
unwanted opinions, then berating me for getting call or text 988. You are not real.
The View includes reporting by Leslie Dickstein and Simmone Shah
 “Do you think you’re trans?” Star my body shake. I threw myself in,
asked me, locking eyes. and we got married quickly.
“Yes, well, maybe. I think so. Yeah.” If a part of you is always sepa-
We exchanged a soft smile. I was so rate, if existing in your body feels
near, almost touching it. But I pan- unbearable, love is an irresistible
icked, and it burned away like the escape. You transcend, a sensation
joint I was smoking, becoming an old so indescribable that philosophers,
roach left to rot in a forgotten ashtray. scientists, and writers can’t seem
It all felt too big—the thought of going to agree on what the f-ck it is—if
through this publicly, in a culture that it even is. I often wonder if I have
is so rife with transphobia and people actually experienced deep love. I
with enormous power and platforms feel as though I have, but is it real
actively attacking the community. if you’ve numbed yourself to the
truth about who you are?
The world Tells us that we aren’t Love was an unwitting emo-
trans but mentally ill. That I’m too tional disguise, and my relationship
ashamed to be a lesbian, that I muti- to it is another muscle to be trans-
lated my body, that I will always be a formed. I’m working on it. I don’t
woman, comparing my body to Nazi want to disappear. I want to exist
experiments. It’s not trans people who in my body with these new possi- Time is running out to
suffer from a sickness, but the society bilities. That sense of possibility is
that fosters such hate. As actress and one of the main components of life stop the climate crisis.
writer Jen Richards once put it: lost when we lack representation:
options erased from the imagina-
It’s exceedingly surreal to have tion, narratives indoctrinated that
transitioned ten years ago, find we spend an eternity attempting
myself happier & healthier than
ever, have better relationships
with friends & family, be a better I don’t want to Act now.
and more engaged citizen, and disappear. I want wwf.org/love
yes, even more productive ... and
to then see strangers pathologize
to exist in my body
that choice. My being trans almost with these new
never comes up. It’s a fact about possibilities
my past that has relatively little
bearing on my present, except
that it made me more empathetic, to break. The unraveling is painful,
more engaged in social justice. but it leads you to you.
How does it hurt anyone else? During my marriage, I ignored
therapy. And when we moved to
Sitting with Star by the pool, I New York City from Los Angeles
couldn’t quite touch the truth, but I at the end of 2018, I virtually
could talk about my gender without stopped going to therapy alto-
bawling. That was a step. It had taken gether. It wasn’t until our relation-
a long time to allow any words to come ship was falling apart two years
out. When the subject came up in later and my gender dysphoria was
therapy, I got lost in sobs. “Why do I so extreme that I sought out some-
feel this way?” I’d plead. “How can I one in the city. I was ready to talk.
have this life and be in such pain?” I could barely find the words,
Not long after my 30th birthday, I but I did. As if they moved on their
did a U-turn. I bailed—I stopped talk- own, wriggling through and up my
ing about it. I closed my eyes and hid body, pouring out. My body knew,
it away. deep down I knew, and something
I met my ex-spouse Emma around had shifted. It was now or never.
that time. Meeting Emma let me It was alive or not.
leave it behind, a foggy memory. Fall-
ing madly in love, the energy was Page is the author of Pageboy, from
indisputable—just a hug would make which this essay is excerpted
THE VIEW PRIDE

assaults on LGBTQ civil rights sweep-

ing the nation. From book censorship
to health care prohibitions on trans
youth to bathroom bans, Governor
Ron DeSantis and his right-wing allies
have ushered in a raft of dehumaniz-
ing policies designed to build political
careers at the expense of our civil lib-
erties. These laws are all animated by
the same dangerous ideology that has
long been used to rationalize discrimi-
nation and violence against LGBTQ
people: that we are a “contagion”
whose “spread” can be stopped only
by wielding the power of government
to censor us out of society. This utterly
absurd argument is peddled alongside
promises to “protect the children”
ESSAY from us in an effort to force us back
into that makeshift closet.
The only way forward The demonizaTion of LGBTQ
after Pulse people isn’t new. Whether it was the
police raids that led to the Stone-
BY BRANDON WOLF
wall Riots or the HIV/AIDS crisis that
△ fueled the ACT UP movement, this
GrowinG up in rural oreGon, i ofTen dreamed Mourners community has had its back against
of a world where I could be all of myself. A world where attend a vigil the wall countless times before. And
I didn’t feel the nagging societal pressure to be “Black on June 13, 2016, at each pivotal point in history, we
enough” for some spaces and “white enough” for others. for the Pulse blazed a new path forward. We willed
A world that saw my queerness not as a deal breaker, nightclub a better, more inclusive future into
but as a superpower. mass shooting existence by sharing our stories and
in Orlando
Pulse nightclub embodied that for me. After packing choosing radical love over the fero-
two suitcases and running away to the refuge of Orlando, cious hate threatening to consume us.
I found what I had been looking for. The spinning disco In the wake of the tragedy at Pulse
balls dared all of us to dance like no one was watching. The seven years ago, Orlando faced a simi-
beats radiating from the floorboards unearthed our authen- lar critical choice. We could succumb
ticity, nudging us into rhythmic protest against a world that to the TV pundits. We could beat the
had always told us to uncross our legs, stiffen our wrists, drums of war. Or we could choose
and deepen our voices. Inside those walls, we were normal. love. We could embody the spirit of
When I close my eyes at night, I can remember the mo- Pulse itself, unapologetically becom-
ments when that normal shattered into a million shards on ing a city that dares everyone to dance
June 12, 2016. I can feel it, hear it, see it. The vibrant poster as if no one is watching. We chose the
above the urinal. The cup teetering on the edge of the latter. We chose love over hate.
sink, perched precariously as if it might tumble to the tiles When I left home, I didn’t expect
below. The first cracks of gunfire from an assault rifle. The to fall in love with a new community.
stench of blood and smoke wafting into the room. I never thought I’d watch that commu-
Hours later, the world woke to our horror: 49 dead, nity traverse the flames of militarized
53 injured. LGBTQ communities across the globe reeled hatred. And I couldn’t have imagined
B R E N D A N S M I A L O W S K I — A F P/G E T T Y I M A G E S

with the jarring reminder that no space is safe when your that our struggle to put the pieces
very humanity is perpetually up for debate. The celebra- back together might demonstrate that
tions over marriage equality and surging social acceptance when hate tries to terrorize us into
were suddenly cleaved by violence. Overnight, ours was a submission and tear us apart at the
community under siege, picking up the broken pieces of Overnight, seams, there is another path. We sim-
the nation’s deadliest attack on LGBTQ people in history. ours was a ply must choose to walk it together.
This community remains under siege today.
Florida, just years removed from that horrifying trag- community Wolf is an LGBTQ activist and the
edy, has become synonymous with the breathtaking under siege author of A Place for Us
22 Time June 12, 2023
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THE VIEW PRIDE

died in 1994, a secular saint. A genera-

tion earlier, the PBS documentary and
reality-TV template An American Fam-
ily took viewers into New York’s queer
demimonde with the family’s son,
Lance Loud. Both men made a pro-
found impact as the first real, out gay
people many viewers got to know.
While The Real World and An Ameri-
can Family dug into who their subjects
were, Drag Race and Queer Eye spot-
light what they do. The latter series’
first iteration paired hapless hetero-
sexual men with a quintet of gay stylists
and lifestyle gurus for uplifting make-
overs. Despite capturing the early-
2000s zeitgeist, the show was rightly
criticized for framing its Fab Five as lit-
tle more than useful helpers. Netflix’s
2018 revival avoids that trap thanks to

T V, C L O C K W I S E F R O M T O P L E F T: H U L U, N E T F L I X (2), W O R L D O F W O N D E R / PA R A M O U N T+; T O N Y: N I N A W E S T E R V E LT — VA R I E T Y/G E T T Y I M A G E S , S L AV E N V L A S I C — F A M I LY E Q U A L I T Y/G E T T Y I M A G E S

a new cast we get to know better and
a broad range of makeover subjects,
some of whom are LGBTQ.
Despite its jubilant tone, there are
nods to our current political moment,
from the Deep South setting to the
rainbow-hued frocks worn by groom-
ing expert Jonathan Van Ness. One
Reality TV confronts a dark emotional episode spotlights Stepha-
nie, a lesbian who styles herself as the
moment for LGBTQ rights ultimate New Orleans sports fan to
BY JUDY BERMAN appear more palatable in the wake of
a traumatizing experience of homo-
△ phobia. It’s an acknowledgment that
“All Things jusT keep geTTing beTTer,” proclAims Clockwise from as empowered as the Fab Five may be,
the theme song of reality show Queer Eye, which celebrates top left: Drag Me many still experience daily prejudice.
its 20th anniversary in July. For years, that sentiment rang to Dinner, The To understand the impact of Drag
true for LGBTQ rights. “Don’t ask, don’t tell” was repealed Ultimatum, Queer Race, take a look around the reality-
in 2011. Federal marriage equality arrived in 2015. Trans Eye, and Drag Race TV landscape. In the 14 years since
figures like Laverne Cox and Elliot Page burst onto the na- it debuted, it has spawned not only
tional stage. But the 2020s have been painful for queer and 11 international editions and several
trans Americans. Hearing a brass band belt out this opti- stateside spin-offs, but also a universe
mistic refrain in the new, New Orleans–set seventh season, of drag-themed entertainment, from
you might ask: All things just keep .. . doing what now? HBO’s road-trip series We’re Here
Such is the bittersweet experience of watching LGBTQ to the Discovery+ renovation romp
reality TV in 2023. It’s heartening to see evidence of peo- Trixie Motel. This Pride month brings
ple with diverse sexual orientations and gender identities Season 2 of singing competition Queen
thriving. Yet there’s something surreal about Queer Eye of the Universe and Hulu’s dinner-
doing cheerful makeovers in a state with a “Don’t say gay” party face-off Drag Me to Dinner.
bill and RuPaul sending queens down the runway amid a Current events have, in turn, influ-
flurry of antidrag legislation. After decades as small-screen enced Drag Race. The franchise part-
vanguards of a movement that used pop culture as a soap- nered with the ACLU to create a Drag
box, these shows are scrambling to meet the moment. Defense Fund. Season 15 crowned
Sasha Colby the show’s second con-
Queer eye and ruPaul’s Drag race deserve a lot of secutive trans winner. And the eighth
credit for bringing LGBTQ culture into the mainstream. all-star season, currently airing on
But they were hardly the first in their genre to do so. Paramount+, welcomed back Monica
The Real World made Pedro Zamora, a gay AIDS activist who Beverly Hillz, who made TV history
24 Time June 12, 2023
in 2013 when she came out as trans.
The revelation sparked important con- THEATER
versations about the relationship be-
tween drag and gender identity, which
might have continued in All-Stars had
she not been cut in the premiere.

MAYBE IT’S SURPRISING that as some

of the most iconic queer voices in
TV deliver advocacy and delight, the
LGBTQ reality series that feels most
urgent is The Ultimatum: Queer Love.
This edition of the Netflix series gives
a Pride-friendly twist to Season 1, in
which straight couples who couldn’t
agree on whether to get engaged
had “trial marriages” with other
cast members to clarify their futures

There’s value in
zooming in on the
quotidian realities
of queer love

(and incite drama). This time, all par-

ticipants are female or nonbinary.
Rather than a platform for mint-
ing celebrities, the show is a window
into its nonfamous subjects’ everyday
lives. Couples considering marriage
are weighing universal questions, and
the Queer Love cast is no exception.
Though most seem genuine, not all are
likable. Yet aspects of their situations
are relatable to anyone who’s ever
been in a long-term relationship.
It probably isn’t a good sign that the
most resonant LGBTQ reality show
not only echoes the pre-marriage-
equality slogan “Love is love,” but ◁
also, like The Real World and An Amer-
ican Family, serves in part to underline
the humanity of queer people. No one
should need such a reminder, and I
doubt many right-wing voters will be
watching. But just as there’s value in
the performative empowerment of
Drag Race and Queer Eye, there’s value
in zooming in on the quotidian reali-
ties of queer love in the time of mar-
riage equality. If Hollywood in general
seems frustratingly impotent in the
face of repressive legislation, at least
these shows are a balm for those strug-
gling to survive it. □
25
 CONTENT FROM
CONTENT THETHE
FROM INTELLIGENT INVESTOR
INTELLIGENT INVESTOR

Morocco
SMURFIT KAPPA – Leading by example, opening its
state-of-the-art Rabat plant in July 2023
first products were rolling off its lines by the

B
y the end of 2021, the volume
of FDI flowing into Morocco had end of 2022. “Thanks to the tremendous
reached $2.1 billion, a 50% support we received from both the local
increase over the previous year. Attracted authorities and the Smurfit Kappa Group, it
by the country’s strategic location between took less than a year to develop this project
Europe and sub-Saharan Africa, a growing from scratch,” Naciri says.
number of multinationals are choosing to According to Saverio Mayer, CEO Smurfit
use Morocco as a springboard into Africa. Kappa Europe, “our Spanish organization
Smurfit Kappa, one of the world’s built up an in-depth knowledge of Morocco
largest paper-based packaging companies, is a case in point. In May 2022, because we could see that it is a rapidly developing country with a bright
the company announced construction of a new packaging plant in Rabat, future. We also felt we could really make a difference by bringing our
its first on the African continent, that will give it the potential to supply approach to the market with our commitment to innovation, and our own
innovative and sustainable packaging solutions quickly and efficiently particular methodology.”
to its local customer base. With 1,000 designers in four R&D centers The Moroccan operation promises to be just the start of a new and exciting
strategically located across the world, the company will surely live up to this chapter in the Smurfit Kappa story. “We consider this to be our gateway to the
promise. “We sell sustainable packaging solutions that meet our customers’ wider continent,” says Naciri. “I firmly believe that companies like ours have a
requirements and perform on several different levels,” says managing responsibility to reinvigorate Africa’s economies and business communities and
director Mounir Naciri. “We don’t just sell boxes; that is not our culture.” add value back to its domestic markets.”
Although Smurfit Kappa only bought the 50,000 square meters of land it A win-win solution for the multinationals
required in October 2021, it had its first stone event in May 2022, and the and the African continent.

RABAT INVEST – A Hub for Investment

M
orocco’s success in capacity, the CRI acts as a one- 22 industrial zones (including innovative range of corrugated
positioning itself as the stop-shop providing an array of four industrial acceleration zones). packaging solutions will increase the
region’s primary hub services, ranging from support for “We have the most important productivity of its local clients and
for manufacturing and exports has the implementation of investment regional fund in Morocco, and add value to RSK’s economy.
been remarkable. The country is projects in the region through to the we are supported by a very good “What is good for RSK is good for
now considered to be not only a after-care services. investment ecosystem,” says Ms. Morocco and the entire continent,”
gateway between Africa and Europe Situated on Morocco’s northwest Nejma El Houda Bouamama, Rabat Bouamama says with pride. “The
but also a strategic industrial and Atlantic coast, RSK boasts a Invest’s general director. “We enjoy future is Africa, and we are its
export platform toward the USA number of attractions. In addition specific help and strong support gateway. Investing in RSK is a smart
and the Middle East. Some of this to its central geographical position from regional departments. This has move.”
success can be attributed to its at the intersection of Morocco’s created a very positive vibe and has
network of agencies dedicated to transport infrastructure, RSK offers made it much easier to build up
attracting overseas investors. A an appealing living environment, strong relationships with potential
prime example of these is Rabat an impressive infrastructure, investors that is based on mutual
Invest, formally known as the and a large and growing pool of trust.”
Regional Investment Center (CRI) talented labor thanks to the region’s A growing number of
for the Rabat-Salé-Kénitra (RSK) leading academic and research multinationals are choosing RSK
region. facilities. It also operates a highly to be their regional headquarters.
The organization is responsible for attractive investment incentive That Smurfit Kappa recently chose Regional Investment Centre
Rabat-Salé-Kénitra
smoothing the way for companies framework that includes direct to invest $37 million to build its 23, Ave. Annasr,
that want to take advantage of financial subsidies such as land packaging plant outside Rabat 10 090 Rabat. Morocco.
Tel: +212 537 77 64 00
the numerous benefits of setting support and employment bonuses was gratifying to Bouamama, www.rabatinvest.ma
up operations in RSK. In that for competitiveness, as well as especially given that the company’s promotion@rabatinvest.ma

time.com/specialsections
 CONTENT FROM THE INTELLIGENT INVESTOR

POWER MAROC –
Bespoke Digital Cloud Services Provider
With 98% of the country’s population using mobile phones
and accessing the internet, Morocco has emerged as one
of the most successful adopters of digital technology on
the African continent. Its business communities have been
equally proactive in harnessing the benefits of the information
revolution.

By integrating public and private cloud

B
anks and telcos were pioneers in using IT
to cut costs, improve customer experience services with on-premises infrastructure -- and
Youssef Largou,
and successfully compete with their by providing orchestration, management, and CEO of Power Maroc
international rivals, and many other flagship application portability across all three -- the
companies have followed suit, including large hybrid cloud enables organizations to run and algorithms. Companies will also need to rewire
industries and several government departments. scale both their traditional and cloud-native their decision-making processes and to upgrade
What many of these entities have in common workloads over the most appropriate single, their employees’ skill sets.
is their choice of partner to help them with unified and flexible distributed computing PowerM has recently announced its latest
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cloud and middleware implementation. That “WE ARE IN THE PROCESS OF partnership aims to adapt IBM’s Watson portfolio
partner is Power Maroc (PowerM), a professional TRANSFORMING POWERM INTO of business-ready AI tools, applications, and
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business partner. SERVICES PROVIDER THAT the Moroccan market.
Headquartered in Casablanca, this relatively CAN ADDRESS THIS NEW SET PowerM is now also getting ready to extend
young organization has already completed OF CHALLENGES FACING OUR its geographical footprint outside Morocco’s
hundreds of successful projects and boasts a MOROCCAN CUSTOMERS,” borders. Largou has already held constructive
client base of more than 90 satisfied enterprise SAYS LARGOU. “THERE talks with potential clients in Tunisia, Mali, and
customers. Average annual revenue is $10 IS NO OTHER MOROCCAN Senegal, where there is growing recognition that
million after little more than ten years in business. CLOUD PROVIDER WHO CAN a company like PowerM could help add a level of
PowerM is also IBM’s largest partner in the SUPPLY SUCH BESPOKE technical sophistication to their banking sectors
country and has been nominated as one of its INNOVATION TECHNOLOGY in particular.
most innovative international partners for five TO LOCAL CUSTOMERS. IT’S But Largou’s ambitions go much further than
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of five companies each year. “That may sound SUCCEED.” office opening in Texas, while there is another
modest,” says CEO Youssef Largou, “but we run possibility for geographic expansion in Dubai.
a small team who are totally focussed on the If artificial intelligence lives up to its Both are likely to happen this year. “We are
provision of expertise and customer satisfaction. transformational promise and PowerM continues realistic enough to know that we need to build
We will quite often give our customers advice that to succeed in tapping into the phenomenal speed sustainable partnerships with local partners if we
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the business of building long-term partnerships.” its move into hybrid cloud provision certainly he says. Working as subcontractor to gain local
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community and IBM, which now count PowerM increasingly clear, and both IBM and Largou
as one of an elite band of partners helping pioneer have been quick to recognize that capitalizing
the roll-out of ground-breaking technological on its promise requires considerably more than
developments like hybrid cloud and AI services. an investment in cutting-edge technologies and https://powerm.ma

time.com/specialsections
We need
each other.

Now more than ever. Because when we work together

to connect children with what they need to grow up healthy,
educated and safe, we make everyone’s world better.

Including yours.

ChildFund.org
 BY DAN HENDRYCKS

30 TIME June 12, 2023

31
TECHNOLOGY

▷
These same competitive dynam- Sam Altman, OpenAI
ics will apply not just to companies CEO, testifies before
but also to nations. As the autonomy Congress on May 16
of AIs increases, so will their control
over the key decisions that influence
society. If this happens, our future will of “designing” AIs, they now speak of
be highly dependent on the nature of “steering” them. And even our abil-
these AI agents. ity to steer is slipping out of our grasp
The good news is that we have a say as we let AIs teach themselves and in-
in shaping what they will be like. The creasingly act in ways that even their
bad news is that Darwin’s laws do too. creators do not fully understand. In
Though we think of natural selection advanced artificial neural networks,
as a biological phenomenon, its princi- we understand the inputs that go into
ples guide much more, from economies the system, but the output emerges
to technologies. The evolutionary biol- from a “black box” with a decision-
ogist Richard Lewontin proposed that making process largely indecipher-
natural selection will take hold in any able to humans.
environment where three conditions Second, evolution tends to produce
are present: 1) there are differences selfish behavior. Amoral competition
between individuals, 2) characteris- among AIs may select for undesirable
tics are passed on to future genera- traits. AIs that successfully gain
tions, and 3) the fittest variants prop-
agate more successfully.
Consider the content-recommenda-
tion algorithms used by social media
THOUGH WE THINK OF NATURAL SELECTION AS A BIOLOGICAL
platforms and streaming services. PHENOMENON, ITS PRINCIPLES GUIDE MUCH MORE
When particularly addictive algo-
rithms hook users, they result in
higher engagement and screen time. influence and provide economic value integrated into vital infrastructure,
These more effective algorithms are will predominate, replacing AIs that like power grids or the internet.
consequently “selected” and further act in a more narrow and constrained When embedded into these criti-
fine-tuned, while algorithms that fail manner, even if this comes at the cost cal systems, the cost of disabling
to capture attention are discontinued. of lowering guardrails and safety mea- them may prove too high for us to ac-
This fosters the survival of the most sures. As an example, most businesses cept since we would become depen-
addictive dynamic. Platforms that re- follow laws, but in situations where dent on them. AIs could become em-
fuse to use addictive methods are sim- stealing trade secrets or deceiving reg- bedded in our world in ways that we
ply outcompeted by platforms that do, ulators is highly lucrative and dif- can’t easily reverse. But natural selec-
leading to a race to the bottom among cult to detect, a business that engages tion poses a more fundamental bar-
competitors that has already caused in such selfish behavior will most rier: we will select against AIs that are

P R E V I O U S PA G E : G E T T Y I M A G E S ; A LT M A N : N AT H A N P O S N E R — A N A D O L U A G E N C Y/G E T T Y I M A G E S
massive harm to society. likely outperform its more principled easy to turn off, and we will come to
competitors. depend on AIs that we are less likely
In the bIologIcal realm, evolu- Selfishness doesn’t require malice to turn off.
tion is a slow process. For humans, it or even sentience. When an AI auto-
takes nine months to create the next mates a task and leaves a human job- these strong economIc and stra-
generation and around 20 years of less, this is selfish behavior without tegic pressures to adopt the systems
schooling and parenting to produce any intent. If competitive pressures that are most effective mean that hu-
fully functional adults. But scientists continue to drive AI development, mans are incentivized to cede more
have observed meaningful evolution- we shouldn’t be surprised if they act and more power to AI systems that
ary changes in species with rapid re- selfishly too. cannot be reliably controlled, putting
production rates, like fruit flies, in The third reason is that evolution- us on a pathway toward being sup-
fewer than 10 generations. Uncon- ary pressure will likely ingrain AIs planted as the earth’s dominant spe-
strained by biology, AIs could adapt— with behaviors that promote self- cies. There are no easy, surefire solu-
and therefore evolve—even faster preservation. Skeptics of AI risks tions to our predicament.
than fruit flies do. often ask, “Couldn’t we just turn the A possible starting point would
There are three reasons this should AI off?” There are a variety of prac- be to address the remarkable lack of
worry us. The first is that selection tical challenges here. The AI could regulation of the AI industry, which
effects make AIs difcult to control. be under the control of a different currently operates with little over-
Whereas AI researchers once spoke nation or a bad actor. Or AIs could be sight, much of the research taking
32 Time June 12, 2023
 Don’t call it an arms race
BY KATJA GRACE

place in the dark. Regulation needs

to be done proactively rather than
reactively; if something goes wrong
in this domain, we may not get the
chance to fix it.
The problem, however, is that
competition within and between na-
tions pushes against any common-
sense safety measures. AI is big
business. In 2015, total corporate in-
vestment in AI was $12.7 billion. By
2021, this figure had grown to
$93.5 billion. As the race toward pow-
erful AI systems quickens, corpora-
tions and governments are increas-
ingly incentivized to reach the finish
line first. We need research on AI
safety to progress as quickly as re-
search on improving AI capabilities.
There aren’t many market incentives
for this, so governments should offer
robust funding as soon as possible.
The future of humanity is closely
intertwined with the progression of
AI. It is therefore a disturbing realiza-
tion that natural selection may have
more sway over it than we do. But as
of now, we are still in command. It
is time to take this threat seriously.
Once we hand over control, we won’t
get it back.
A BETTER ANALOGY
Hendrycks is director of the Center
for AI Safety, a San Francisco–based
MIGHT BE A CROWD
research nonprofit STANDING ON THIN ICE
TECHNOLOGY

The AI détente planet. Especially with a technology

they admit they don’t fully comprehend.

THE WORLD MUST FIGURE OUT A WAY TO DEAL So, where are the solutions? We’ll
WITH THE THREAT FROM AI BY IAN BREMMER need national action, global coopera-
tion, and some commonsense collabo-
ration from the U.S. and Chinese gov-
The now surging developmenT of of the past have mainly created more ernments. But all will have to make
artificial intelligence will produce med- jobs than they’ve killed, and they’ve in- rules in coming years that limit the
ical breakthroughs that save and en- creased general productivity and pros- ability of AI bots to undermine insti-
hance billions of lives. It will become perity, but there are crucial caveats. tutions, markets, and security.
the most powerful engine for prosperity Finally, the AI revolution will also That means identifying and track-
in history. It will give untold numbers impose an emotional and spiritual ing bad actors, as well as helping in-
of people, including generations not cost. Human beings are social animals. dividuals separate real from fake in-
yet born, powerful tools their ancestors We thrive on interaction with others formation. Unfortunately, these are
never imagined. But the risks and chal- and wither in isolation. Bots will too big, expensive, and complicated steps
lenges AI will pose are becoming clear often replace humans as companions that policymakers aren’t likely to take
too, and now is the time to understand for many people, and by the time sci- until they’re faced with AI-generated
and address them. Here are the biggest. entists and doctors understand the (but real) crises. Unlike on climate
The health of democracy change, the world’s govern-
and free markets depends on ments haven’t yet agreed that
access to accurate and veri- the AI revolution poses an exis-
fiable information. In recent tential cross-border challenge.
years, social media has made it Here, the U.N. has a role to play
tougher to tell fact from fiction, as the only institution with the
but advances in artificial intel- convening power to develop a
ligence will unleash legions of global consensus.
bots that seem far more human By forging agreement on
than those we’ve encountered which risks are most likely,
to date. In China, and later in most impactful, and emerging
its client states, AI will take most quickly, an AI-focused
facial recognition and other equivalent to the Intergov-
tools that can be used for state ernmental Panel on Climate
surveillance to exponentially Change can regularize the pro-
higher levels of sophistication. duction of “state of AI” agree-
This problem extends be- A facial-recognition demo at a 2022 AI summit in Shanghai ments that drill ever closer to
yond our institutions, because the heart of AI-related threats.
the production of “generative AI”— long-term impact of this trend, our There could also be an agency modeled
artificial intelligence that generates deepening reliance on artificial intel- on the International Atomic Energy
sophisticated content in response to ligence, even for companionship, may Agency to help police AI proliferation.
prompts from users—isn’t limited to be irreversible. This may be the most That said, there’s no way to ad-
big tech companies. Anyone with a lap- important AI challenge. dress the fast-metastasizing risks cre-
top and basic programming skills al- Challenges like these will demand a ated by the AI revolution without an
ready has access to AI models far more global response. Today, artificial intel- infusion of common sense into rela-
powerful than those that existed even ligence is regulated not by government tions between the U.S. and China. After
a few months ago and can produce un- officials but by technology companies. all, it’s the tech competition between
precedented volumes of content. This The reason is simple: you can’t make the two countries and their lead tech
proliferation challenge is about to grow rules for a game you don’t understand. companies that creates the greatest
exponentially as millions of people will But relying on tech firms to regulate risk of war, particularly as AI plays an
have their own GPT running on real- their products isn’t a sustainable plan. ever growing role in military weapons
Q I L A I S H E N — B L O O M B E R G /G E T T Y I M A G E S

time data available on the internet. They exist mainly to make a profit, not and planning. Beijing and Washington
Artificial intelligence can also ex- to protect consumers, nations, or the must develop and sustain highest-level
acerbate inequality, within societies— conversations about emerging threats
between small groups with wealth, access, to both countries (and the world) and
or special skills and those without—as WE’LL NEED NATIONAL how best to contain them.
well as between wealthier and poorer
nations. AI will create upheaval in the
ACTION, GLOBAL Bremmer, a TIME editor-at-large,
workforce. Yes, technological leaps COOPERATION is president of Eurasia Group
34 Time June 12, 2023
T H E C L I M AT E A C T I O N P L AT F O R M

TIME CO2 brings together the information, products and community

to accelerate climate action and elevate climate leaders.

FIND OUT MORE AT CO2.COM

 POLITICS

BY MOLLY BALL/
TALLAHASSEE

DeSantis launched his

presidential campaign on
May 24

PHOTOGR APH BY TOM WILLIAMS

POLITICS

agenda he calls the Florida Blueprint. “We’ve had

conservative leadership in Florida for the past 23
years, but we’ve passed more conservative bills in
the past two years than the previous 20, and more
this year than the past 22,” says GOP state senator
Joe Gruters. “It’s a rocket ship, a steam engine.”
Out of a combination of fear and mutual inter-
est, legislators have put aside their own pet proj-
ects to do DeSantis’ bidding, passing bills to shield
his travel records from the public and allow him
to run for President without resigning the gover-
norship. They’ve also been enlisted to clean up his
messes, retroactively legalizing his migrant flights
to Martha’s Vineyard last year and attempting to
restore state control of the special tax district
iT’s a Tuesday morning in Tallahassee, and around Disney World amid the company’s feud
a wood-paneled hearing room at the Florida leg- with DeSantis over LGBTQ rights. “This gover-
islature is packed. The state senate’s fiscal-policy nor has used all of his powers to make sure every-
committee is considering a bill to prohibit most one around him is in lockstep,” says Jeff Brandes,
abortions after six weeks of pregnancy, and a libertarian-leaning former GOP state senator
dozens of citizens have lined up to testify: an- who lost a seat on a prized committee after clash-
guished young students in colorful hair and ing with DeSantis over fiscal issues.
aborTion is healTh care T-shirts; little old By operationalizing the culture war into a set
ladies wearing cardigans and crosses. For hours of concrete policies, DeSantis has transformed
they speak in emotional terms as the senators listen. the nation’s third most populous state. What was
Yet an air of inevitability hangs over the pro- once the butt of jokes about gators and retirees is
ceedings. Governor Ron DeSantis supports this now the swaggering, Southern-tinged Free State
bill, and therefore it is destined to pass. In Talla- of Florida—where men are men, “woke” is broke,
hassee these days, what the governor wants, the and business is booming; 1,200 net new residents
governor gets. It is DeSantis who welcomed this arrive every day. “It’s in the air, it’s everywhere, it’s
fight, DeSantis who calls the shots, and DeSantis amazing,” says former GOP Representative David
who will reap the credit—or blame—for his latest Jolly, no fan of the vibe shift. “It’s between neigh-
move in a frenzy of right-wing policymaking. bors, it’s when you go to restaurants, when you go
His dominance is hard to overstate. From to schools. You’re on one side or the other, and peo-
school-board meetings to the Walt Disney Corp., ple know it.” A Florida native, Jolly is considering
the shelves of elementary-school libraries to local moving his family out of the state.
mask ordinances, everything bears his stamp. Hav- If critics see DeSantis as a would-be authoritar-
ing shepherded his state through the COVID-19 ian, allies see a conservative who gets things done.
pandemic, bucking the political and medical es- Many predicted that his hard-charging first term in
tablishments to follow his own read of the data, office would provoke a backlash. Instead the oppo-
DeSantis has manipulated levers of power to enact site occurred. While Republicans across the coun-
a sweeping agenda. The week I landed in Talla- try struggled last November, DeSantis romped to a
hassee, he signed an expansive school-voucher law 19-point re-election victory, the biggest win for a
and a measure investing more than $700 million Florida governor in decades. What was once Amer-
in affordable housing. The legislature was hearing ica’s paradigmatic swing state now pulsates bright
his proposed ban on gender-affirming health care red. For the first time in modern history, registered
for minors, a bill to expand gun rights that would ‘WE’VE Republicans outnumber Democrats. The people
allow concealed carrying of firearms without a per- SHOWN YOU of Florida seem to like the steady hand—even if
mit, another that would dramatically curtail union
rights, and a bid to prohibit socially conscious in-
DON’T HAVE it’s an iron fist.
To fans, DeSantis’ success proves that a pugi-
vesting. All would eventually pass. At DeSantis’ be- TO DO IT THE listic, big-government conservatism that prom-
hest, legislators this year also eliminated diversity LIBERAL WAY, ises ruthless competence instead of Trumpian
programs at public universities, made it easier to AND WE’RE chaos can win broad support, including a grow-
sentence criminals to death, and barred schools
from using trans students’ preferred pronouns.
THE ENVY OF ing share of working-class and minority voters.
“We’ve shown that you don’t have to do it the lib-
For a typical Republican governor, any of these THE NATION.’ eral way, and we’re the envy of the nation when
policies might represent a signature achievement. —RANDY FINE, you look at our results,” says state representative
For DeSantis, they’re the latest line items in an GOP REPRESENTATIVE Randy Fine, a Republican who has sponsored some
38 Time June 12, 2023
 △
of DeSantis’ most controversial legislation and may Students cheer DeSantiS’ methoDS of keeping the legislature in
soon be rewarded with an appointment as a univer- during a DeSantis line are not subtle. At one point, a Republican law-
sity president despite no background in academia. speech at Liberty maker was planning to oppose a DeSantis-backed
“DeSantis says what he’s going to do and he does it. University in bill until he got a phone call from the governor,
People like that, even if they don’t agree with him.” Lynchburg, Va., who had helped the lawmaker get elected. With-
The Blueprint has already done more than just on April 14 out preliminaries, DeSantis barked into the phone,
make DeSantis the darling of right-wing media “Do you know why you’re here?”
and donors. It has changed the face of American “Yes,” the startled lawmaker answered. Without
P R E V I O U S PA G E S : C Q – R O L L C A L L /G E T T Y I M A G E S ; T H E S E PA G E S : T O M W I L L I A M S — C Q – R O L L C A L L /G E T T Y I M A G E S

politics. His gerrymandering of the state’s politi- saying another word, the governor hung up, two
cal map added enough red seats to secure the U.S. people familiar with the incident told me. Mes-
House of Representatives for the GOP last Novem- sage delivered.
ber. Fellow governors, invited by DeSantis to pol- Unlike his predecessors, DeSantis does not
icy summits where they study his approach, have roam the halls of the Florida statehouse and spends
enacted laws modeled on his policies, affecting little time in his office in the legislative building.
millions of lives beyond Florida. And his agenda The office, situated on the ground level, has be-
has set the stakes for the 2024 presidential pri- come code for DeSantis, Politico recently reported.
mary. Donald Trump’s campaign has been nota- “That’s Plaza’s bill,” lawmakers will say.
bly more focused on transgender issues, education, DeSantis, 44, was born in Jacksonville and
and “wokeness” than on the tax cuts and vaccine raised in the Gulf Coast city of Dunedin, where his
development that might be considered his main mother was a nurse and his father installed Nielsen
presidential accomplishments. TV-rating boxes. A book-smart introvert and tal-
On May 24, DeSantis officially launched ented baseball player, he graduated with honors
his presidential campaign, instantly becoming from Yale University (where I knew him slightly)
Trump’s chief rival for the Republican nomina- and Harvard Law School before joining the Navy.
tion. Trump has attacked him relentlessly, dent- As a member of the Judge Advocate General (JAG)
ing DeSantis’ standing with GOP voters and sow- Corps, he was stationed at Guantánamo Bay and
ing doubts about his national viability. But those then deployed to Iraq, where he served as a legal
who have witnessed DeSantis operate say it would adviser to the SEALs during the 2007 troop surge.
be foolish to count him out. “He’s not charming,” In 2010, DeSantis left active duty and settled
says GOP state representative Fiona McFarland. near Jacksonville, where he worked as a lawyer
“But he’s a terminator.” and married a local TV anchor, Casey Black, whom
39
POLITICS

he met at a driving range. As the Tea Party fervor

crested, he self-published a book of conservative
ideas, Dreams From Our Founding Fathers, and
traveled to local activist meetings to give talks and
sell it. DeSantis was looking for a way into elected
office but unsure where to start until he met two
Florida consultants, Tim Baker and Brian Hughes,
who had made a specialty of electing conservative
insurgent veterans. DeSantis thought he might run
for state legislature or some other low-level office.
The consultants persuaded him he had a shot at a ABORTION EDUCATION TRANSGENDER
Jacksonville-area congressional district that had RESTRICTIONS
just been redrawn to favor the GOP.
The 2012 primary was crowded, and DeSantis
had little money or name recognition. The consul-
tants devised a guerrilla strategy designed to tap
into the new conservative zeitgeist. Casey, a local
celebrity, began using her married name on televi-
sion. The couple went door to door, using his ad-
visers’ data to target households with the strongest
record of voting in Republican primaries. Mean-
while, his consultants, who had agreed to backload
their fees, gambled by spending nearly all of the
campaign’s meager budget on an ad on Fox News.
DeSantis began to close the gap on his more ex-
perienced rivals. He impressed national right-wing
groups and won the endorsement of the influen- Servicemembers (PAWS) Act, which funded a pro-
tial Club for Growth, which brought a flood of cash gram providing service dogs to veterans with PTSD.
from donors. He won the seven-way GOP primary In 2016, DeSantis briefly ran for the U.S. Sen-
by a wide margin, drawing nearly 40% of the vote. ate seat that Marco Rubio had vacated to run
Buoyed by this success, the consultants drew for President, but dropped out when Rubio de-
up a plan to raise DeSantis’ profile as he headed to cided to return to the Senate. Instead, DeSantis
Washington. But the candidate dismissed them: announced a run for governor in 2018. It was
he didn’t want to spend more money with his elec- another insurgent campaign: the Florida GOP
tion to Congress all but assured. It was only when establishment already had its handpicked can-
Baker and Hughes expressed concern that the dis- didate, Adam Putnam, the state agriculture com-
pute might become public that DeSantis relented, missioner. But DeSantis again read the changing
according to two people familiar with the episode. currents of the GOP. He appeared relentlessly on
Their role in his early career is not mentioned in Fox, emerging as a reliable defender of Trump,
DeSantis’ new memoir, The Courage to Be Free, particularly on the Russia scandal that enveloped
which describes the door-knocking strategy as if the first years of the President’s term.
it were DeSantis’ own idea. “He has a habit of re- On Dec. 8, 2017, DeSantis and a fellow right-
writing history,” one of the people familiar with wing Florida Congressman, Matt Gaetz, hitched a
the episode told me. “There’s Richard Petty, there’s ride on Air Force One to a Trump rally in Pensacola.
Tom Petty, and then there’s Ron DeSantis petty.” Along the way, Gaetz urged the President to en-
dorse DeSantis for governor. He described Putnam
Over three terms in the House, DeSantis was as a Never Trumper and read aloud a list of nega-
a reliable conservative not known for his people tive things Putnam had said about the President.
skills. Congressional colleagues describe him as A couple of weeks later, after catching another De-
strikingly aloof, rebuffing or ignoring friendly Santis appearance on Fox, Trump endorsed him on
overtures and wearing earbuds to avoid con- Twitter. DeSantis made the most of it, mentioning
versation. A co-founder of the right-wing Free- Trump 21 times in his first debate with Putnam
dom Caucus, DeSantis in his memoir describes and running an ad that jokingly showed him read-
his years in Congress as mostly frustrating. GOP ing The Art of the Deal to his young children and
leaders exercised top-down power, he argues, “building the wall” with toy blocks.
but weren’t willing to fully use their leverage to In the general election, DeSantis faced An-
achieve conservative goals. He does, however, drew Gillum, the progressive Black mayor of Tal-
tout his work on the Puppies Assisting Wounded lahassee. In an early postprimary appearance,
40 Time June 12, 2023
 giving the executive more say in judicial nomina-
tions. At the same time, term limits approved by
voters in a 1992 ballot initiative took hold, turn-
ing the legislature into a revolving door where law-
makers could no longer amass power over decades.
As DeSantis entered office in 2019, the power of
Florida’s executive was already at a historic high.
He was determined to use every bit of it. “One
of my first orders of business after getting elected
was to have my transition team amass an exhaus-
IMMIGRATION CRIMINAL FIGHTING tive list of all the constitutional, statutory, and
JUSTICE ‘WOKENESS’ customary powers of the governor,” he writes in
The Courage to Be Free. “I wanted to be sure that I
was using every lever available to advance our pri-
orities.” Aides from the time have corroborated this
account, describing a thick binder of information
that DeSantis proceeded to devour.
Conscious of his narrow victory, DeSantis ini-
tially sought to broaden his appeal. “We got elected
by the hair of our chinny-chin-chin, so the goal
of the transition was to grow the universe of
DeSantis supporters in the state of Florida and do
better with nonwhite voters, independents, sub-
urban women, and young people,” says Gaetz, who
chaired the transition to the governorship. (Once
an ally of both men, Gaetz has grown distant with
DeSantis said, “The last thing we need to do is to DeSantis since endorsing Trump’s 2024 cam-
monkey this up by trying to embrace a socialist paign.) DeSantis approved the sale of smokable
agenda.” Democrats decried his verbiage as a rac- medical marijuana, appointed Democrats to prom-
ist dog whistle. DeSantis refused to back down or inent posts in the administration, raised teacher
apologize. But while many national observers re- pay, and proposed record levels of environmental
member that controversy, in Florida the campaign funding for the Everglades. He posthumously ex-
mostly focused on state issues. “What Ron said to onerated the Groveland Four, Black men wrongly
me in 2018 when we were laying out the strategy accused of raping a white woman in 1949. When
was, ‘We’re going to nationalize the primary and his proclamation honoring the third anniversary
localize the general,’” Gaetz tells me. “The plan of the massacre at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando
was to run against Putnam on national issues and was criticized for failing to mention the affected
then paint Gillum as in the pocket of Big Sugar.” groups, DeSantis’ office reissued it with a new sen-
In a good year for Democrats, DeSantis defeated tence decrying “hatred towards the LGBTQ and
Gillum by less than half a percentage point. Hispanic communities.”
Trump has claimed credit for DeSantis’ rise, Even early on, though, there were hints of a more
but one former DeSantis adviser says the governor assertive approach. DeSantis short-circuited the
sees his success as foreordained. “He has a provi- usual process for state supreme court nominations,
dential belief that he will talk sincerely about. He allowing him to cement a conservative majority that
believes he is exactly where God planned him to would be unlikely to overturn his policies, as previ-
be at all times,” the adviser says. “I’m sure he be- ous courts had done to his predecessors. He used a
lieves, ‘It was nice of Trump to help me kick the ‘YOU’RE new, aggressive interpretation of his powers under
sh-t out of Adam Putnam. But it would have hap-
pened anyway.’”
ON ONE state law to remove local elected officials, including
Scott Israel, the Broward County sheriff whose re-
SIDE OR sponse to the Parkland school shooting drew criti-
The Florida governorship has not always THE OTHER, cism. Previous governors had reserved that right for
been a powerful position. Until 1968, the gover-
nor could serve only one term, and until the 1990s
AND officials who broke the law, and a state senate spe-
cial master recommended that Israel be reinstated,
he (Florida has only had male governors) shared PEOPLE but DeSantis pushed through the removal. DeSan-
decisionmaking powers with six other statewide KNOW IT.’ tis’ support for Everglades funding may have been
elected officials. Reforms that took effect during —DAVID JOLLY,
less about the environment than getting back at
Jeb Bush’s tenure in the early 2000s shrank the FORMER GOP the powerful sugar industry, whose generous sub-
elected cabinet to just three members while also REPRESENTATIVE sidies he had opposed since his days in Congress
41
 △
and which had spent more than $10 million back- DeSantis celebrates dying in isolation, prohibited from seeing their
ing Putnam in the primary. “Sugar is more power- his landslide loved ones. DeSantis had surveyed the landscape,
ful than Disney here, by far, and he took them on re-election victory watched a stampede of governors go one way, and
unapologetically,” says Nick Iarossi, a Tallahassee with his wife Casey determined he would do the opposite. “It was very
lobbyist and DeSantis ally. and his children on binary,” Gaetz recalls. “One group was going to be
But it was the pandemic, critics and supporters Nov. 8, 2022 toast. The other was going to be vindicated.”
agree, that changed DeSantis. After initially shut- The crisis hit right after the 2020 legislative
tering schools and restaurants, DeSantis grew frus- session had concluded. Rather than call back
trated by the lack of clear guidance from Washing- the frightened lawmakers to address it, DeSantis
ton and the medical establishment. He began doing seized new powers for himself. Declaring a state
his own research and soon concluded that much of emergency, he claimed unfettered authority to
of the early conventional wisdom about COVID-19 allocate pandemic funds from the federal govern-
was wrong. The spread of the virus could be miti- ment. He overrode local governments and school
gated but not contained, he believed. Democratic boards that tried to impose closures or mask man-
Governor Andrew Cuomo of New York was being dates, and threatened to remove or withhold pay
hailed by the media for his strong leadership even from local officials who sought further restrictions.
as he sent infected elderly people back to nursing Once receptive to input from outside his orbit,
homes, an act of tragic malfeasance intended to he became convinced of his own rightness. “COVID
prevent a hospital-bed shortage that never mate- was definitely the switch that flipped, when he
rialized. Studying the emerging medical data, De- started to become a bully,” says Nikki Fried, who
Santis concluded such fears were based on faulty served at the time as agriculture commissioner,
models, and he almost certainly saved lives by iso- the only Democrat elected statewide alongside
lating elderly patients. He soon reopened Florida’s DeSantis. Having initially welcomed her outreach,
beaches, schools, and businesses while prioritizing she says, during COVID-19 he stopped returning
protections, vaccines, and treatments for the most her calls. Fried, who now chairs the state Demo-
vulnerable citizens. cratic Party, began calling DeSantis a “dictator.”
Gaetz, who talked to DeSantis daily during this At a dinner in Austin in January 2021, Iarossi in-
period, says the governor often brought up the troduced DeSantis to Elon Musk. The two men pro-
1918 Spanish flu pandemic, in which people were ceeded to discuss disease vectors and biotherapies
wheeled onto beaches for sunlight and ventila- in obsessive detail. DeSantis “was getting the sh-t
tion. He fretted about the long-term mental-health kicked out of him on CNN,” Iarossi recalls. “And he
effects of shutting people indoors and became said to me, ‘Nick, I don’t care what they say about
emotional describing nursing-home residents me now. I care what they say six months from now.
42 Time June 12, 2023
 I’ve done the research, and I think I’m right.’” At told me. Brian Ballard, a powerhouse lobbyist in
the time, loosening restrictions seemed like a risk, Tallahassee and D.C. and an ally of both Trump
but DeSantis’ confidence was unshakable. “Every- and DeSantis, says the gambit cemented his domi-
one’s in hysteria thinking the world is going to end, nance. “The [state] senate didn’t lay down for him
all his advisers are telling him not to. But business at first. But he showed he was able to use his po-
thrived, the economy thrived, people moved here. litical popularity in a way that previous governors
It took a year, not six months. But he was right.” had not, and it’s brought him incredible power.”
DeSantis’ chief of staff, James Uthmeier, says he
As trump left office and the pandemic waned, has never seen a policymaker so hands-on. “He sits
the governor grew more emboldened. In 2021 and and talks through the nitty-gritty of policy and the
2022, the legislature pushed through DeSantis- budget,” says Uthmeier, who previously served as a
backed bills to make it harder to vote, ban vaccine senior official in Trump’s Commerce Department.
passports, and crack down on “rioting” at protests. “He’s ingrained in the process in a way I haven’t
The “parental rights in education” bill, better known seen working in the Trump Administration or with
as “Don’t Say Gay,” prohibited the teaching of sex other public officials.”
and gender in early elementary grades, while the With polls showing DeSantis’ approval ratings
Stop WOKE act banned the teaching of critical race among Florida Republicans in the 90s, he moved
theory (CRT) at schools and businesses. DeSantis to spend his skyrocketing political capital. Tradi-
signed a 15-week abortion ban, contingent on the tionally, the state senate caucus had recruited can-
yet-to-come reversal of Roe v. Wade, and began to didates for office and funded their campaigns, but
express skepticism about the COVID-19 vaccines, DeSantis had other ideas. In statehouse races in
appointing a new state surgeon general, Joseph the Tampa and Jacksonville areas, he announced
Ladapo, who opposed vaccine and mask mandates his own handpicked candidates, prompting those
while promoting unproven treatments. backed by the senate to drop out. Republicans who
Favor-trading was not DeSantis’ style; loyalty went against him drew complaints from their con-
was not necessarily returned. At the end of one leg- stituents. In the 2022 election cycle, several Flor-
islative session, he proceeded to theatrically veto ida political consultants told me, their research
budget priorities of the legislative leaders stand- found DeSantis’ endorsement to be the single most
ing alongside him on the stage. important attribute for GOP primary voters. “In
When it came time to redraw the state’s con- 2020, every member in a strong Republican seat
gressional districts in 2022, legislators proposed campaigned with a picture of Donald Trump,” says
a new map that largely preserved the delega- GOP state representative McFarland. “In 2022,
tion’s balance. A voter-approved constitutional they campaigned with a picture of Ron DeSantis.”
amendment prohibited partisan gerrymander- His political aims didn’t stop at the statehouse.
ing and sought to protect minority districts, and In another unprecedented move, he issued a raft of
lawmakers were wary of being slapped down by down-ticket endorsements as well. Working with
the courts if they went too far. But DeSantis had the conservative parents’-rights group Moms for
read the relevant laws and precedents, and in Jan- Liberty, he backed slates of school-board challeng-
uary 2022 he proposed his own map, which elim- ers in districts across the state, targeting boards
inated a majority-Black district in north Florida that had tried to impose school closures and mask
and gave the GOP a shot at up to four additional mandates during the pandemic. He moved to fill
seats in Congress. the state bureaucracy with the like-minded, stack-
None too keen on this attempt to usurp their ing traditionally nonpartisan university and hos-
traditional responsibility, legislators ignored pital boards with right-wing warriors like the anti-
DeSantis and passed their own map instead. critical-race-theory activist Christopher Rufo.
DeSantis vetoed it. At the same time, he let it be ‘IF HE HAS When a locally elected Democratic prosecutor an-
known that Senate president Wilton Simpson, THE RIGHT, nounced he would not enforce DeSantis’ abortion
who was running for agriculture commissioner,
might not get his endorsement if he didn’t go
HE DOESN’T and transgender policies, DeSantis removed him
based on his own reading of the relevant statutes.
along. Finally, the legislature relented and passed HESITATE— (A court ruled that the rights of the prosecutor had
DeSantis’ map. A few days later, DeSantis en- AND THE been violated, but that his dismissal could stand.)
G I O R G I O V I E R A — A F P/G E T T Y I M A G E S

dorsed Simpson, and another Republican candi-

date who had been running for the post dropped
VOTERS DeSantis and his aides went to war with the
press, ignoring media requests or publicizing in-
out. (The map, which governed the 2022 elec- LIKE A quiries they considered off-base on Twitter, urg-
tions, still faces court challenges.) STRONGMAN.’ ing fans to swarm and harass reporters. At press
The redistricting fight was pure DeSantis. “He —MAC STIPANOVICH,
conferences, he delights in berating members of
did that single-handedly—nobody pushed him— FORMER REPUBLICAN the “corporate media,” often challenging the prem-
and he was relentless,” one current GOP lawmaker OPERATIVE ise of their questions and accusing them of bias.
43
POLITICS

He scrupulously avoids the mainstream media, poll well in isolation. The campaign ultimately pro-
once theatrically turning down an invitation to duced some 70 different commercials, each look-
appear on The View. This year, DeSantis’ proposal ing backward at the accomplishments of DeSantis’
to make it easier to sue media outlets for libel was first term. Not a single ad focused on his promises
one of a handful of initiatives the legislature balked for the future.
at. (DeSantis’ staff did not respond to multiple re- DeSantis took the resulting landslide as vindi-
quests to interview him for this article.) At the same cation. If past editions of the legislature tended
time, DeSantis carefully tends his image in conser- to do DeSantis’ bidding, this year’s session—with
vative media. He appears frequently on Fox News, a GOP supermajority in both the state house and
once granting the channel exclusive rights to cover senate stacked with newcomers he handpicked—
a bill signing, and doles out interviews and exclu- was engineered to work his will. DeSantis passed
sives to right-wing influencers and publications. A down a list of more than 40 legislative priorities
pair of local digital outlets, Florida’s Voice and the and pushed the lawmakers to get started early.
Florida Standard, popped up shortly after DeSantis Twice before the official March kickoff, he called
was elected, helmed by writers with backgrounds special sessions to knock out priorities that could
in conservative activism. Their funding sources are have waited, like insurance reform.
unknown, but with DeSantis’ help, they frequently Tallahassee observers believe the flurry was
break news about the governor, forcing the rest of choreographed to tee up the launch of a presi-
the press corps to follow their lead. The strategy dential bid that will place his policy record at its
has made him a household name to the national center. But unlike the legislative session, the pre-
GOP base, and he attracts large crowds at appear- campaign did not go according to plan. DeSantis
ances across the country. stumbled on foreign affairs out of the gate, drawing
DeSantis’ policies drew the notice of other red- harsh criticism for a statement that described Rus-
state governors across the country, who began to sia’s invasion of Ukraine as a “territorial dispute.”
see Florida as a laboratory for conservative policy. Trump has savaged him in personal terms. Some
A raft of states have introduced legislation mirror- Republicans worry that DeSantis’ rush to the right
ing “Don’t Say Gay,” and many have followed his on issues like abortion may come back to bite him.
lead with bans on transgender athletes and CRT. Even allies wonder if DeSantis is cut out for the
His battle with Disney has galvanized a national intense human interaction required in a national
GOP war on “woke” business practices like envi- campaign. An April trip to D.C. to meet with his
ronmental, social, and governance (ESG) invest- former colleagues in Congress ended disastrously,
ing. DeSantis donor retreats in Fort Lauderdale last producing a flood of anecdotes about his antiso-
July and Palm Beach in February were styled as cial ways on Capitol Hill and a slew of new con-
policy conferences, with attendees including GOP gressional endorsements for Trump. The same
governors. He was not the first Republican gover- bunker mentality that has made DeSantis more
nor to transport border-crossing migrants to lib- feared than loved, enabling him to shut out dis-
eral cities—a gambit the Trump Administration tractions and dismiss the naysayers, has created
had considered but rejected as too extreme—but an insular operation struggling to do the out-
by flying them to tony Martha’s Vineyard, he man- reach a presidential campaign requires. His stiff-
aged to up the ante. arming of mainstream media has made it difficult
“What DeSantis has done which his predeces- to regain control of the narrative. And Trump’s
sors did not do is exploit all of the power inherent political rise would seem to show that policy, sub-
in the office of the governor,” says Mac Stipanovich, stance, and governing experience may not count
a longtime GOP lobbyist and operative in Talla- for much in today’s GOP.
hassee who left the party after Trump’s election. But those who have had a front-row seat to De-
“Just because you have the right to do something Santis’ transformation of his state know better
doesn’t make it right, and his predecessors were than to underestimate him. His presidential run,
conscious of that. There were guardrails. But if he allies say, will draw on his Florida record to argue
has the right he doesn’t hesitate—and the voters he is both more effective and more electable than
like a strongman.” Trump. To GOP partisans hungry for confrontation
‘HE’S NOT but weary of losing, he offers Trumpian aggres-
as a popular governor with a weak Demo-
cratic opponent, DeSantis was virtually guaran-
CHARMING. siveness without all the baggage. “What got him
here isn’t personality, it isn’t gladhanding,” says
teed to win re-election in 2022. But he craved BUT HE’S A Iarossi. “It’s the relentless pursuit of conservative
something bigger. With a war chest of more than TERMINATOR.’ policies that have made Floridians’ lives better and
$100 million, he instructed his campaign that he —FIONA MCFARLAND,
led to a majority of registered Republicans. It’s the
wanted to run on his record. Admakers were told FLORIDA GOP result of policies and governing.” —With reporting
to focus on his policies—even the ones that didn’t REPRESENTATIVE by LesLie DicksTein and JuLia ZorThian □
44 Time June 12, 2023
 Content by the Buzz Business

INNOVATION MOBILITY

DRIVING THE
FUTURE OF
TECHNOLOGY
Just over a decade ago, artificial
intelligence pioneer Luc Julia
helped bring the world’s most Renault Group is leading the way
popular voice assistant to life. towards a new world of driving.
Now he’s come home to France to
change forever the way we drive. “In a self-driving car, the desire to Other startups in the incubator
be entertained will be even greater,” program are using AI to assess
At the Paris headquarters of French Julia says. “Car companies need to road quality, analyze tire wear and
automotive company Renault Group, keep their users connected and let detect signs of drowsiness by
Julia is leading Artificial Intelligence them work, watch a movie or play a identifying tell-tale changes in a
(AI) initiatives that will make cars safer, game, regardless of their location.” driver’s eye and head movements.
smarter and more sustainable.
Occupants of electric cars from Renault “AI is like a toolbox with different
“One of the reasons I came to Renault will soon be able to call on their own specialized tools that can be used
Group is because our CEO Luca de voice-activated virtual assistant to help together to perform many tasks and
Meo is committed to turning us into a them navigate this brave new world. improve the overall driving performance,”
tech company,” Julia says. “Software Named Reno, this avatar is scheduled Julia says. “All these modules are going to
and AI are playing a major role in to be integrated in the company’s cars be gradually integrated in our production
shaping the future of the car industry, by the end of next year. Reno will help of cars over the next few years. At
and Renault recognizes that.” people get the most out of their electric Renault, we are doing everything we
vehicles, including providing drivers can to be a leader in this technology.”
Much of Julia’s work is focused on using with information about the impact of
AI to improve driving performance and climate conditions on a vehicle’s range,
increase passenger safety. Using data guiding them through new functions,
from cameras, sensors and radars, or recommending the best routes
advanced driver-assistance systems based on real-time traffic information.
(ADAS) enable cars to monitor their
surroundings better, helping prevent At the same time, Renault is working
accidents. Renault’s latest models, with some of the largest industrial
such as the Megane E-Tech electric, and technology companies in France
contain AI-powered innovations like to incubate startups that are working
driver attention alerts, blind spot on promising applications of AI. That
warnings and 360° around view 3D collaborative effort has produced
cameras, taking ADAS to the next level. the Software République, an open
innovation ecosystem supporting a
“Thanks to this technology, we have range of efforts to transform all parts
the opportunity to design much of the automotive industry. One startup AI WILL NOT COMPLETELY REPLACE
HUMAN DRIVERS, BUT IT WILL MAKE
safer cars,” Julia says. “I believe we is developing a bi-directional charger
can reduce the number of global that will enable owners of electric
road deaths per year by 90%.” vehicles to power their homes with DRIVING A MORE RELAXED AND
As cars become safer and as most
energy from their car batteries when
parked. Based on data about electricity STRESS-FREE EXPERIENCE.
of the tasks involved in driving prices, AI will determine what times —
are automated, it will be even are best for charging the vehicle and LUC JULIA, CHIEF SCIENTIFIC
more important to provide drivers
and passengers with always-on
when to use its battery power for
household consumption or even to
OFFICER, RENAULT GROUP
entertainment and information services. reinject it back into the national grid.
Next
Generation
Leaders

Trendsetters
and trailblazers
who are guiding
the way to a
brighter future

FLORENCE PUGH
PHOTOGRAPHS BY PHOTOGRAPHED
MARK PECKMEZIAN ON MARCH 18
FOR TIME IN NEW YORK CITY

46 Time June 12, 2023

47
 Next Generation Leaders

U.K.

Florence
Pugh
Saving the movie star from extinction
BY ELIANA DOCKTERMAN

When Florence Pugh Was a child, she haTed To cry Studios and directors are fretting that the theatrical ex-
in public. If she had an argument with her parents, she perience may die if a new crop of young stars can’t lure au-
would run to the bathroom, lock the door, and sit under diences. A recent National Research Group survey asked
the sink. Only then would she weep. “When I started act- moviegoers to name the actors who could get them to a
ing I remember thinking, ‘Ooh, this isn’t good news,’ be- movie theater. The top answers all qualify for AARP cards:
cause we all know how amazing it feels when you see the Tom Cruise (60), Dwayne Johnson (51), and Tom Hanks
character you’ve been following finally crumbles,” she says. (66). Villeneuve says he cast Dune: Part Two with the fu-
“And I just couldn’t do it.” ture of cinema in mind. “I needed people who have the
Now she cries so often in movies that it’s become some- necessary charisma,” he says. “I think Florence, Zendaya,
thing of a meme—her guttural wails in Midsommar, her Timothée [Chalamet], and Austin [Butler], they will be the
blubbering in Little Women, and her screams in Don’t Worry new power in Hollywood. These strong, charismatic figures
Darling have all gone viral. Because a childhood illness af- will drag people back to the theater.”
fected her breathing, Pugh still has a gravelly voice that Pugh has charisma to spare. Along with her famous
lends itself to anguish. She used to imagine her family in frown, she deploys her infectious smile at opportune mo-
coffins to achieve the ultimate ugly cry: “I never wanted it ments, often on the tiny screens where our social feeds
to be prissy. For me, it’s snot or nothing.” But she’s no one- scroll. She glowed in royal purple Valentino, a knowing
trick pony: equally adept at comedy and action, she has grin on her face and Aperol spritz in her hand, as she strut-
appeared in superhero flicks and indies. She’s a magnetic ted around Venice last fall the same day the director she
and multifaceted onscreen presence, the kind that doesn’t was allegedly feuding with, Olivia Wilde, had to explain
come around very often. why Pugh was absent from a Don’t Worry Darling press
Pugh is in the midst of what might be the biggest year of conference. She gleefully called out trolls who scolded her
her career. On the heels of A Good Person—a drama written for wearing a transparent dress that showed off her nip-
and directed by her ex-partner Zach Braff, which she also ples. She beamed when she debuted a new buzz cut at the
produced—she’ll star in two highly anticipated movies: Met Gala in May.
Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer and Denis Villeneuve’s Her smile betrays a confidence near impossible to
Dune: Part Two. Both are the sorts of epics that Hollywood achieve at 27. She’s honed her control of her emotions
rarely makes anymore, especially in an era when franchises, into an art for delicate scenes. “Despite her youth, she
not movie stars, sell tickets. has a drive and assurance,” says Villeneuve. “You feel

48 Time June 12, 2023

IN HER “COOKING WITH ONE OF PUGH’S BIGGEST started her career posting videos to YouTube singing and
FLO” SEGMENTS, PUGH HAS
MADE EVERYTHING FROM
FANS: HER GRAN, WHO
HAS WALKED THE RED
playing guitar in her childhood bedroom in Oxford. Suc-
HOMEMADE MARMALADE CARPET WITH THE YOUNG cess has changed little about her approach.
TO RATATOUILLE STAR SEVERAL TIMES In the cheeky “Cooking With Flo” Instagram videos
that rose to popularity during quarantine, Pugh offered
tips gleaned from her restaurateur father. She is designing
her kitchen in her new London home with more cooking
videos—and even a possible TV series—in mind. “Conver-
sations are happening,” she says of a cooking show. “If I
were to make something, I wouldn’t want it to be polished
or clean or fussy.”
Her entire image is messy by design. She posts as many
photos of sprouting zits as red carpets. Followers might as-
sume this is a bid for relatability. But she’s trying to main-
tain control of her image in a tabloid landscape that glorifies
actors’ movie-premiere glamour one day and mocks their
bad hair day the next. “I would never show one side of me
because that’s setting myself up to fail,” she says. “I don’t
want anyone to make money catching me out being me.
I want to give them all of me.”
Pugh learned early the value of defining your own public
persona. After her film debut in the 2014 drama The Falling,
she landed a pilot for a show that never went forward—a
blessing considering producers asked her to change her
body. She refused and decided she would not return to
Hollywood until she had a better grasp of what she wanted
to represent. After a breakout role as the dastardly protag-
onist in the British period drama Lady Macbeth, she was
drawn back to Los Angeles to play opposite Dwayne John-
‘D E S P I T E H E R YO U T H, son in the WWE film Fighting With My Family.
“The person I came back to was a female wrestler with
SHE HAS A DRIVE muscles and big thighs who made her own name as a cham-
AND ASSURANCE ... pion,” she says. “I quite liked that because the last time I’d
been there I was told I needed to lose weight—it was just
S H E ’ S A R A W D I A M O N D .’ so not the person I wanted to be.” Pugh has worked with
—DENIS VILLENEUVE,
lauded directors like Park Chan-wook (The Little Drummer
DIRECTOR OF DUNE: PART TWO Girl), Greta Gerwig (Little Women), and Ari Aster (Mid-
sommar) portraying strong-willed women who fight against
society’s expectations.
“Even if they’re not defined on the page, I always find
some way to make them quite confrontational,” she says of
you’re working with someone who can absolutely go any- her characters. “I never see the bad in them—even when
where and do anything emotionally in the most subtle and they have killed children and burned boyfriends. I’ve al-
precise way. She’s a raw diamond.” ways understood them as people that needed to do what
they had to do to survive.”
Pugh and I meet at Locanda Verde, an Italian restaurant in
Tribeca. The green juice she ordered keeps separating, and If Pugh knows when to fight, she also intuits when to
she mindlessly stirs the concoction back together before each stay mum. Rumors swirled in 2022 about drama on the
sip. Pugh ate here with her parents the night before and re- set of Don’t Worry Darling, the film directed by Wilde—
quested a table in the corner. The waiter solemnly informed particularly regarding how Wilde’s then rumored rela-
her that that spot was reserved for Robert De Niro, a co- tionship with Pugh’s co-star Harry Styles and casting de-
owner. She kept an eager eye out for the megastar all night. cisions were causing tension. Pugh seemed to float above
People speak of legends like De Niro in hushed tones. the controversy. Buried in the tepid reviews of the film were
But Pugh argues we need to let go of the concept of the raves for Pugh’s empathetic take on a woman trapped in a
enigmatic movie star: with rare exceptions like Beyoncé, ’50s male fantasy. Despite the fervent gossip—or because
public figures today simply cannot maintain an air of mys- of it—Don’t Worry Darling made almost $90 million at the
tery. Luckily Pugh is particularly adept at social media. She box office, a feat for an adult drama.

49
 Next Generation Leaders

Pugh is building a career on films that run the gamut

from scrappy indie shoots to megablockbuster productions.
No matter the scope, after nearly a decade in the business,
Pugh can sense whether a film will succeed based on vibes
alone. Has she ever thought, while on set, that a movie was
simply falling apart? “Definitely,” she says. “A whole film
set, it’s everybody making a huge effort because they want
to be there. And if someone doesn’t want to be there or
if someone isn’t pulling their weight, you can feel it. The
film feels wrong.” I start to press for specifics and she—
exceedingly politely—moves on to a related topic.
Recent experiences on gigantic projects with Nolan and
Villeneuve set a high bar. “He has the utmost respect for
every single person working on that set,” she says of Nolan.
And she calls Villeneuve a “bizarre, mad, creative genius” for
his ability to render the fantastical world of Dune onscreen.
Villeneuve, in turn, describes Pugh as a rambunctious
kid: “She’s mischievous.” Pugh confirms that she and
Chalamet, who starred in Little Women together, had to
be separated in the Dune trailer because they were having
too much fun. But don’t let her playfulness deceive you,
Villeneuve warns. Once the cameras roll, “she has fire-
power.” Her peers and fans agree: she’s earned nods from
the Oscars, BAFTAs, and the Cannes Film Festival, and ef-
fusive support from 9.1 million Instagram followers.

Actors who enter the Superhero Industrial Complex

can end up trapped in an endless series of interconnected
films and shows. After her debut as Black Widow’s sister
Yelena in 2021’s Black Widow, Pugh made a cameo in the
Disney+ show Hawkeye and is scheduled to begin shoot-
ing a Marvel ensemble movie, Thunderbolts, with Harrison
Ford this summer. But in between, she managed to earn a
slew of nominations for her small Netflix film The Wonder. U.S.

Roze Traore
“So many people in the indie film world were really
pissed off at me. They were like, ‘Great, now she’s gone
forever,’” she says. “And I’m like, no, I’m working as hard
as I used to work. I’ve always done back-to-back movies.
It’s just people are watching them now. You just have to be Blending two cultures
a bit more organized with your schedule.”
Her future will, she hopes, involve time on the stage. She
wrote and performed music in A Good Person and wants to
sing again. She’s working on a love story produced by A24
opposite Andrew Garfield called We Live in Time. She is
open to a rom-com—and if anyone can help bring back a
genre on life support, it’s an actor disproving the thesis that
movie stars are a dying breed.
We finish our breakfast, leaving behind the half-drunk
glass of green juice. Pugh heads to a photo shoot where
she finds a more appetizing drink, another Aperol spritz.
A couple hours later, her parents, grandmother, and Braff
pop by for a visit, and Pugh beckons her Gran—who has re-
cently joined her on several red carpets—to sit beside her.
The actor plucks two straws from a cup and sticks them in
the spritz so the duo can sip it together. Pugh laughs and
applauds as her grandmother dramatically curtsies for the
crew. All smiles, no tears.

50 Time June 12, 2023

 AUSTRALIA

Melanie Perkins
Visualizing a world of good in tech
BY SIMMONE SHAH

Melanie Perkins, co-founder no cost, with the option to

and CEO of the online graphic- pay for upgrades. They also
design tool Canva, has a provide free subscriptions to
two-pronged plan for success. educational organizations
First, build one of the world’s and nonprofits. The company
most valuable companies. counts 85% of Fortune 500
Next, do as much good in the companies among its users,
world as possible. but Perkins believes the most
The two goals “fuel each salient examples of the com-
other,” Perkins, 36, tells TIME. pany’s impact are in how it’s
The philosophy might seem changed everyday lives—from
like an odd North Star for a refugees using the platform
company offering templates to design résumés as they
for presentations and job hunt in a new country, to
save-the-date cards, but a woman creating a flyer that
it’s just one way Perkins is helped her track down her
reimagining the modern birth mother.
tech company. In 2018—the year Canva
Headquartered in Sydney, joined the ranks of “unicorn”
thousands of miles away from startups valued at over
Silicon Valley, with its reputa- $1 billion—just 9% of those
tion as a global arbiter of new companies had at least
innovation, Perkins has built one female founder. Recent
a design platform that easily numbers are likewise dismal:
rivals those offered by giants in 2021, the number was
like Adobe and Microsoft, all only 14%.
while keeping accessibility at Perkins has been comfort-
the heart of its mission. able going against the grain.
After launching in 2013, “There’s always been forks in
Canva has grown to offer ser- the road [where we could] do
vices in over 100 languages, what every other company is
with 125 million users in doing, or just do what feels
190 countries. The company natural. Every time we do
operates on a “freemium” what feels natural, it always
subscription model that ends up being the thing that
includes basic features at we build on.”

51
 Next Generation Leaders

ARGENTINA

Bizarrap
Elusive hitmaker
BY MOISES MENDEZ II

Bizarrap cultivates an air most is that people get to

of mystery, so much so know my music,” he says.
that when he first started His numbers are
gaining popularity, people impressive: 7.2 billion views
questioned whether he was a on YouTube, 41.8 million
real person. The Argentinian monthly listeners on Spotify.
producer and DJ can usually Several of his videos and to follow a certain path to find rap banger with the Puerto Rican
be spotted in the background songs have hundreds of their audience. rapper Villano Antillano, but also
of his videos, back to the millions of views and streams. On his channel, the 24-year- for their content: his collabora-
camera, shades obscuring And Bizarrap, real name old producer and his guests tion with Residente gave rise
his eyes, giving the floor— Gonzalo Julián Conde, has record a simple music video to a short-lived feud between
or, more accurately, the done it all without releasing for a jointly composed original the Puerto Rican rapper and
mic—to the artists he invites an album. His meteoric but song, often featuring his sig- J Balvin. Most notably, his Janu-
on the megapopular YouTube unconventional rise signals nature electropop sheen. They ary track with Shakira, in which
music-video series he started a shift in the industry, proving have gone viral not just for his she addressed cheating rumors
four years ago. “What I like that newcomers don’t have beats, as with the EDM-infused about her husband for the first

U.S.

Drew Afualo
TikTok’s crusader for women

52 Time June 12, 2023

time, exploded in popularity,
breaking several Guinness
World Records. Suddenly, it
had become much more dif-
ficult for Bizarrap to fade into
the background.
Still, the artist has con-
tinued to cede the limelight.
“I make music every day,” he
says. “I like thinking about
ideas for my videos, making
teasers. I’m always thinking
about the next step.” He
leaves clues on social media
as to what those steps
might be, and who he might
collaborate with—although
he’s worked with some of
the biggest names in the
Latin music scene, there are
still several on his wish list.
At the end of the day, it’s all
about the songs: “What’s
important to me is that the HONG KONG

Henry Edward Tse

music speaks for itself.”

A trailblazer for transgender rights in Asia

BY CHAD DE GUZMAN

Since returning to Hong Kong “I’m essentially blocked of sexual minorities, some
in 2017, transgender activist from participating in population segments remain
Henry Edward Tse says he public life,” he tells TIME. unsupportive—including
feels like he’s been running “Whenever I use gender- Tse’s own parents.
a marathon—except the segregated spaces, it’s the It would be understand-
government keeps moving same story again.” able for Tse to want to leave
the finish line. Tse and other advocates Hong Kong, given his home-
Tse, 32, scored a historic continue to protest the land’s hurdles. But with a law
legal victory in February when stalled implementation by education under his belt, and
the city’s top court ruled the city’s legislative and advice from allies in “more
against requiring transgender executive branches of their democratized” Japan and
people to undergo full gender- judicial victory. In a cosmo- Taiwan, Tse has taken a delib-
affirming surgery to change politan former British colony erate, calculated approach
their legal gender markers. that in recent years has to transforming transgender
For many transgender people, quelled many forms of dis- rights in Hong Kong through
surgery can be costly and sent in pursuit of mainland judicial reviews—living his
dangerous, and LGBTQ advo- China’s national security, belief that law is the vehicle
cates hope the ruling could Tse knows he fights an to protect human rights.
pave the way for other nations uphill battle. With the court ruling yet
in largely conservative Asia A “patriots-only” to be implemented, Tse
struggling to implement more congressional body has views his judicial victory as
inclusive policies. Tse says meant LGBTQ rights in the merely “staged,” and he says
the continent is “the epicen- Chinese enclave tend to fall he’d rather stay in the city to
ter of change for the global short of basic international continue the fight.
trans movement.” considerations and typically “If I don’t do it, I don’t
But months later, a toe Beijing’s less inclusive see [how] anyone could,”
small F still sits where an policy line. And despite Tse says. “It’s a very
M should be on Tse’s ID. wider public acceptance demanding job.”

53
 Next Generation Leaders

BRAZIL

Rene Silva
Empowerment through local journalism

54 Time June 12, 2023

 U.S. the tools needed to figure around the world.

Sage Lenier
out how they can best take “You shouldn’t be able to
action—right now. get a high school diploma or
“I’m not going to sit college degree without having
Centering solutions in the climate fight around and wait for sweeping
national legislation. So, what
a basic understanding of the
ecological systems that keep
BY KYLA MANDEL can you do at the city, state, you alive,” says Lenier.
or county level to push the Seeing the tangible
needle?” she asks. impacts of the course was
For climate activist Sage Future course. Since then Building on the program’s “transformative for me,” she
Lenier, 24, education is a it has enrolled over 1,800 success at Berkeley, in the says. According to surveys by
tool for empowerment. Too students, 600 of whom spring of 2021 a onetime her nonprofit, 71% of students
often, she says, higher educa- Lenier taught herself. “We virtual version of the course have said they are, or plan to
tion focuses solely on the are advocating for a better was made available online in be, involved in an environmen-
problems instead of exploring climate education that partnership with the nonprofit tal organization or initiative
solutions to the world’s many really prepares us for what Zero Waste USA. And in thanks to the course.
pressing environmental chal- a climate-change future is January, Lenier—who recently “People would come out
lenges. The result can leave gonna look like,” she says. completed a fellowship with of the program and say, ‘I’m a
students feeling overwhelmed More than just rethinking the Op-Ed Project and the Yale different person. I’ve decided
and depressed. how we learn about environ- Program on Climate Change to do XYZ with my life. I’ve
So in 2018, as a 19-year- mental problems, it’s a bigger, Communication—helped decided to start this com-
old student at the University systemwide perspective that launch the Sustainable & munity initiative,’” she says.
of California, Berkeley, Lenier drives Lenier’s work. The goal, Just Future nonprofit with the “Being able to hold space for
designed the Solutions she says, is to inspire young aim of bringing the solutions that change—that’s the most
for a Sustainable & Just people, and equip them with course to other universities important thing I need to do.”
S I LVA : R O D R I G O O L I V E I R A F O R T I M E ; L E N I E R : M A R I S S A L E S H N O V F O R T I M E

55
 Next Generation Leaders

SOUTH KOREA HYBE, which launched isn’t exactly surprising. ADOR

NewJeans
boy band BTS to international CEO Min Hee-jin was once
acclaim—has already reached responsible for the branding
global milestones even of many enduring names in
K-pop’s next act faster than its more senior
counterparts in the industry.
the K-pop world like Shinee,
EXO, and Girls’ Generation.
BY CHAD DE GUZMAN Two of NewJeans’ singles Now helming her own label,
stayed on the Billboard 100 Min has spoken of breaking
for five weeks this year, and in established industry expecta-
Hyein just turned 15, but her Haerin, Hanni, and Danielle, March the band became the tions, which resonated with
birthday wish is unusually pur- who are all under 20. fastest Korean act ever to hit NewJeans members. (The
poseful for a teenager: “I want A year ago, no one knew 1 billion streams on Spotify in band’s name is a wordplay on
to show more of my skills and who NewJeans was. But since just 219 days, despite having “new genes”—as in the next
different sides of me that I it dropped its first music video released only a handful of generation of K-pop—and the
haven’t shown yet,” she says. in August 2022, the nascent songs. This August, NewJeans timeless style of denim.)
This youthful drive to keep K-pop girl group—managed by will become the first K-pop “We’re always trying to cre-
growing is a common denomi- the record label ADOR, a sub- girl group to perform at ate a fresh vibe,” says Danielle
nator among Hyein and her sidiary of the South Korean Lollapalooza. of NewJeans’ distinctive style.
NewJeans bandmates: Minji, entertainment behemoth NewJeans’ popularity Clear Y2K influences appear in

56 Time June 12, 2023

their fashion and their songs,
produced by musicians known
for their experimental, more
underground discography.
“This is new, but it’s also bring-
ing back all these memories
from the past.”
As cutthroat as the K-pop
industry is said to be, the
members of NewJeans
are happy to take things in
stride. They’re focused on
enjoying the process and just
making music that they want
to hear. “K-pop is such a big
thing,” Hanni says. “I don’t
know if you could really even
predict what it’s going to be
in the future.”

U.K.

Matt Fitzpatrick
An exemplary athlete
N E WJ E A N S : A D O R ; F I T Z PAT R I C K : T R A C Y W I L C O X — P G A T O U R /G E T T Y I M A G E S

57
CLIMATE IS EVERYTHING
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analysis in one weekly newsletter.

TIME.COM/CLIMATE-EVERYTHING

JOIN TODAY
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POWER
BY NICOLE CHUNG

American Born Chinese,

the best-selling graphic
novel, finally comes
to television
S O U R C E S : M A C M I L L A N (8); D I S N E Y+ (3)

JASON ISBELL IS A DIFFERENT WHAT HAS BECOME THE BEST OF THE CANNES
KIND OF COUNTRY STAR OF JOHNNY DEPP FILM FESTIVAL

ILLUSTR ATION BY K ATIE K ALUPSON FOR TIME 59

TIME OFF OPENER

A
fter years of printing comics at KinKo’s
and selling them at conventions and local shops,
Gene Luen Yang didn’t expect his 2006 graphic
novel American Born Chinese to get the attention
it did. Blending the coming-of-age journey of Jin Wang, the
son of Chinese American immigrants, with the adventures
of characters from the Chinese epic Journey to the West, the
best-selling book was a National Book Award fnalist and
won the American Library Association’s Michael L. Printz
Award for Excellence in Young Adult Literature. Yet despite
its success, a screen adaptation wasn’t a goal for the author.
“I don’t think there was a lot of interest in shows with
Asian American protagonists back then,” Yang tells me.
The Margaret Cho–led All-American Girl had been canceled
in 1995 after one season, and networks had hardly rushed
to pursue other shows centering the experiences of Asian
Americans. Plus, he had his own doubts: he thought it
would be hard to effectively adapt and translate the edgiest
of the book’s three storylines—in which he has a character
called “Chin-Kee” embody various racist anti-Asian stereo-
types in an attempt to illustrate how harmful they are—for
a TV audience. Then, a few years ago, he met Melvin Mar,
a producer whose credits include the ABC sitcom Fresh
Off the Boat, who in turn introduced him to Kelvin Yu, a
producer and writer (Bob’s Burgers) who also appeared on
Aziz Ansari’s Netflix series Master of None. Yang says Yu
understood the challenges of bringing the graphic novel to Asian Americans: “It warmed my heart
life onscreen, and also had ideas about how to expand the to see how far we’ve come.”
story and the cast, address the difficult plotline, and make While the book’s three distinct
sure the show could resonate with a new generation. storylines—all focused on individuals
Mar, Yu, and Yang are now among the executive pro- grappling with questions of identity
ducers on American Born Chinese, a new family-friendly and belonging—come together
series that premiered May 24 on Disney+ and is directed toward the end, the new series allows
by Lucy Liu and Destin Daniel Cretton (Shang-Chi and the its many arcs and characters (human
Legend of the Ten Rings). Yu, the showrunner, explains that and divine) to interact from the
both the television-production landscape and viewers’ ex- beginning. It also brings the story
pectations have shifted over the years. “When I was grow- from the ’90s into the present and
ing up, it was a few networks trying to appeal to tens of mil- spends more time at home with the
lions of viewers, but that’s not where we are now,” he says. Wang family than the book, in which
“Look at what’s popular on streaming—it tends to be things Jin’s parents are minor characters.
that aren’t straight down the middle. People are more will- When you turn a self-contained 240-
ing and able to dive in.” page graphic novel into an eight-
episode series, you’re going to have
american born chinese features what Yu refers to as “an to add some material. But far from
embarrassment of riches of Asian and Asian American tal- ‘It’s a feeling extraneous, the family scenes
ent.” Ben Wang, whom Yu jokingly calls “the Asian Amer-
ican Michael J. Fox” because “you can’t help but root
privilege are among the funniest and most
moving in the show: Christine taking
for him,” stars as teenage everyman and emerging hero to get to Jin shopping and striking out with
Jin Wang. Daniel Wu and Jim Liu portray Sun Wukong, the elevate every suggestion; Simon realizing
Monkey King, and his son, Wei-Chen, while Yeo Yann Yann that he has let his wife down by giving
and Chin Han give two of the show’s most emotionally res- so many up on some of their shared dreams;
onant performances as Jin’s parents Christine and Simon talented Jin unhappily listening to his parents
Wang. And there’s a mini-reunion of cast members from Best
Picture winner Everything Everywhere All at Once, as Acad-
people. It’s argue in a language he struggles
with from the other side of the wall.
emy Award winners Michelle Yeoh and Ke Huy Quan and a time for Many of the challenges Jin faces,
Academy Award nominee Stephanie Hsu lend additional us to flex.’ his questions about who he is and
star power. Once “the only Asian face” on sets, Quan tells KELVIN YU, where he belongs, are mirrored in his
me it was a joy to collaborate with so many fellow Asians and SHOWRUNNER immigrant parents’ lives.
Time Off includes reporting by Julia Zorthian
 of his first acting roles; the set design-
ers took inspiration from their fami-
lies’ homes for the Wangs’ house. “If
you make something true, something
you like, something that makes you
laugh—if you do all that, and other
people don’t like it, you can sleep at
night,” Yu says. “What you couldn’t
“We actually get to meet the actor live with is if you pandered to what
who played the character later on,” you thought an audience wanted.”
Quan says, referring to an episode in I was in my 20s when I first en-
which viewers learn what it felt like to countered American Born Chinese. It
always be the punch line, not the hero. was only the third or fourth graphic
“It was us bringing a mirror, showing novel I’d read at the time, and I re-
the audience what it was like being an member being first charmed and then
Asian actor in the ’80s and ’90s. Those drawn into the imaginative world of
were the kind of roles I was audition- the book, though I was outside its tar-
ing for, left and right. They were try- get age range and my upbringing as a
ing to show how representation like Korean American adoptee bore little
this trickles down and affects a regular resemblance to Jin’s. Asian American
kid like Jin—what it does to his self- characters were scarce in the books
esteem, his sense of identity.” I’d read growing up—when I did
find us, we were often stereotypes or
Full oF stunts and jokes and sidekicks—but I’d always wanted to
mythological figures, anchored by a believe that there was an audience for
realistic and heartfelt family story, stories focused on our lives, our fami-
Chin Han points out that in their American Born Chinese plunges read- lies, our histories. I wanted to help
scenes together, he and Yeo Yann Yann ers into worlds both like and unlike write those stories, and I also wanted
performed “over 90%” of their dia- our own and resists easy categoriza- to read more and more of them. I still
logue in Mandarin, with subtitles: tion. It also doesn’t seem to have to do. If it is slightly easier to find them
“And the writers trusted it would land, grapple with the question of whether now, it is in part because readers—and
and trusted the audience to follow the a sizable American audience will viewers—continue to demand more.
story and the emotional beats.” Both watch or understand a show about an “It’s a privilege to get to elevate so
said they appreciated the show’s por- Asian American family—perhaps be- many talented people. It’s a time for
trayal of an Asian American family. cause that question has been answered us to flex,” Yu tells me. “The door has
“An Asian family is often seen in a par- by shows like Fresh Off the Boat, which cracked open, and the responsibil-
ticular way, focused on achievement, ran for six seasons. “Some previous ity is now ours—what are we going to
but my experience of being within an shows about Asian Americans—and do with it?”
Asian family is much more interest- there aren’t many, right?—were sort Yang is gratified to know the com-
ing and varied,” says Chin Han. Yeo of forced to deal with certain aspects ics he once drew and stapled by hand
Yann Yann loved that her character of the experience because nobody had have become a foundation on which
was “trying so hard to understand her ever done it before,” Wang says. “Ours others can build their own Asian
son. She’s not the typical Tiger Mom is one of the first shows about an Asian American stories. Now that his book is
we see on some shows.” American experience that feels like it a show, the collective work of so many,
In the series, there is no cousin can just have fun.” his creation is “no longer a ‘me’ story,”
“Chin-Kee”; instead, we meet Freddy American Born Chinese is nothing he says, but “an ‘us’ story.” He hopes
Wong, a character, played by Quan, like Everything Everywhere All at Once, viewers will reflect on “whatever part
on a ’90s show within the show. yet the projects share more than cast of their lives makes them feel like an
Jin is humiliated when a classmate members—a sense of playfulness and outsider, [and] learn to see that as a
compares him to the accident-prone creative freedom permeates both. Yu gift.” It’s a point echoed by Quan: “We
Wong, the butt of every joke on the says one of the lessons he took from all work so hard to find ourselves, our
old sitcom. Quan initially turned working on Master of None is that an identity, and sometimes we want to be
down the role because he feared it audience will respond when creators like others. But there’s beauty in being
was “exactly the kind of portrayal of are “laser-specific” about an experi- who we are. We all need to give our-
Asian characters that we don’t want ence. American Born Chinese is a prod- selves a little more love.”
to see in 2023,” but changed his mind uct of many individuals’ experiences—
when he learned more about the Yu based Jin’s parents on his own and Chung is a TIME contributor and
D I S N E Y+

character’s journey. the character of Freddy Wong on one the author of A Living Remedy
61
TIME OFF MUSIC

◁
Isbell, seated, with the band
the 400 Unit

It’s hard to argue with one person say-

ing, ‘I am scared.’”
The album includes songs like
“Save the World,” about a father’s
fears of his daughter going to school
amid constant shootings. The rous-
ing “Death Wish” features a narrator
who, like many, loves someone suf-
fering mental illness. There are lovely
ballads, lyrics that complexify addic-
tion, and three songs where men offer
advice on ways to navigate life, which
he calls a “Southern tradition.” One of
them, “Cast Iron Skillet,” has already
gained popularity as a single—and
PROFILE led to Lodge molding a custom Jason
Isbell skillet.
Jason Isbell is finding “Middle of the Morning” is a high-
his purpose light, featuring perhaps Isbell’s most
vulnerable vocals, wherein someone
BY SILAS HOUSE
who “was raised to be a strong and si-
lent Southern man” is revealing their
JASON ISBELL SAYS THE DESIRE TO BE HONEST AND FAIR depression. Isbell has always been
is his compass. “One day I decided: ‘This is what I’m going open about his battles with anxiety,
to claim as the purpose for why I’m here,’” he says. “I think a theme of the HBO documentary
it’s to leave the place a little bit better than I found it, and Jason Isbell: Running With Our Eyes
to experience all the things that I can experience.” Closed, released in April.
This year, Isbell is certainly experiencing plenty. He Weathervanes also takes on regret,
is releasing two albums, has a role in Martin Scorsese’s most powerfully on “White Beretta.”
Killers of the Flower Moon, and is the subject of an HBO △ Told from the point of view of a man
documentary. The 13 tracks on who, 25 years later, regrets that he
Isbell, 44, broke onto the music scene with the rock Weathervanes wasn’t more supportive of his girl-
band Drive-By Truckers in 2001 and went solo in 2007. brim with both friend who was terminating a preg-
But his 2013 album, Southeastern, changed his career not joy and sorrow nancy, it offers a plaintive refrain: “It
too long after he changed his life by becoming sober. Since was so many years ago/ Oh and I just
then he has won four Grammys, become known as one didn’t know/ but that ain’t no excuse.”
of the country’s leading singer-songwriters, and gained a “This song did come from personal
legion of devoted fans, including Bruce Springsteen and experience,” Isbell says. “I feel like
the late John Prine. that song, the melody, the chord struc-
Isbell is thoughtful and tenderhearted, but also decisive ture, the arrangement of the song,
and tough. He listens closely and looks people in the eye it all lines up to the point where you
when he speaks to them. Quick to laughter, he also displays don’t necessarily feel like you’re listen-
a keen intelligence with an expansive vocabulary, whether ing to a song, it feels more like you’re
he’s discussing the complexities of allegory in songwriting experiencing a story.”
or the worries of the modern age.
Those concerns are at the heart of his latest album, WEATHERVANES OPERATES as a col-
Weathervanes, a collection of 13 original songs that will be lection of precise short stories, full
released June 9, marking his sixth studio collaboration with of imagery and sensory details. The
the 400 Unit. songs are full of desperation, beauty,
“I think we’re all worried about the same things, we just and wit, populated with everyday
have different ideas about how to resolve those concerns. Americans fighting tremendous bat-
When I’m trying to tackle a big issue ... if I go into it like tles but also living lives of complex
I’m trying to tell a story .. . then that’s hard to argue with. joys and sorrows.
62 TIME June 12, 2023
 Despite his success Isbell still
YOU CAN’T HAVE
feels close to his working-class
roots. He lives on a bucolic farm
outside of Nashville with his wife,
singer-songwriter Amanda Shires
PUBLIC SAFETY
(who also plays fiddle and sings
background vocals on Weather-
vanes), and their daughter. But he
says he’s never far away from the
WITHOUT
trailers and back roads of north-
ern Alabama where he grew up.

P U B L I C
In a year full of work, Isbell is
also marking the 10th anniversary
of Southeastern in September
by releasing a new edition that
includes a live recording of the
original album, demos, and
new packaging.
Southeastern and Weather-
vanes bookend 10 years of re-
markable growth for Isbell as an
PARTICIPATION
artist and as a person. He’s also
become a progressive force: dur-
ing the pandemic he was one of
the most vocal artists calling for The police can’t do it alone. To reduce crime in your community,
safety measures at venues, he
they need your help. So, here’s what has to happen. The police
has insisted on featuring Black
women as openers to many of his should reach out to your community. And your community should
shows, and he’s been active in reach out to the police. Listen to each other, build partnerships,
raising money for LGBTQ issues build trust. This should be happening all across this country –
and for reproductive rights.
“I believe that people should that’s how we get to where we all can finally Celebrate Safe
be allowed to be who they want, Communities®. Get involved. Start the conversation.
to love who they want. I think
there is a big systemic racial issue
in our country,” he says. “And if
those are the things I believe and START THE CONVERSATION — AND HELP STOP CRIME.
I don’t say them out loud, then I’m
being dishonest with myself.”
The value system of his ma-
ternal grandfather is especially To learn the five things you can do,
on his mind these days. “[He] is
in the last stage of his life. He’s go to ncpc.org/PreventViolentCrime
always been very patient, very
gentle, very kind,” Isbell says.
His mother has just told him that
his grandfather had not been ex-
pressing any regrets, only calling
out lovingly for family members.
“Imagine getting through 83 years
and the only thing that’s on your
mind at the end is people you care
about . . . You don’t have any apol-
COURTESY DANNY CLINCH

ogies to make. I can’t think of a

better way to end it than that.” A message from the National Crime Prevention Council
and the Bureau of Justice Assistance.
House, a novelist, is the poet
laureate of Kentucky Supported by BJA award no. 2019-DP-BX-K004.
TIME OFF MOVIES

ESSAY

Johnny Depp, at Cannes, was

a spectacle of his own making
BY STEPHANIE ZACHAREK/CANNES, FRANCE

The aging process is kind To no one, and ThaT

includes Johnny Depp.
On May 16, Depp was in Cannes to walk the red
carpet for the festival’s opening-night film, Maïwenn’s
misunderstood-mistress extravaganza Jeanne du Barry, in
which Depp plays King Louis XV, whose devotion to his
favorite extramarital squeeze brought scandal upon Ver-
sailles. When it was announced that a Depp film would be
opening the festival, murmurs of “Sacre bleu!” were heard
far beyond the kingdom, though perhaps not so much in
France: the festival itself has opened its arms wide to Depp,
who hasn’t exactly been untouched by controversy in the
past few years, given his involvement in two high-profile
defamation suits connected with allegations that he physi-
cally abused his former wife Amber Heard. (The jury ruled
that Heard defamed Depp on three counts and awarded
him $15 million in damages; Depp was found guilty of
one of three charges in Heard’s countersuit, and she was
awarded $2 million in compensatory damages.)
The allegations, and the details of the subsequent messy
trials, are horrifying enough by themselves. The trollish
Depp fans who took to social media to harass Heard and △
the women who stood by her made the situation uglier. Depp’s star has within their expressionist stylization.
You’d have to have been cryogenically frozen through most faded, both His translucent silent-movie-star skin,
of 2022 to have missed it. Yet at the festival’s opening press onscreen and off eyes capable of shifting emotional col-
conference on May 15—the event just wrapped its 76th ors within the space of a heartbeat: to
edition—Cannes chief Thierry Frémaux defended the fes- watch him was to sink into the deepest
tival’s choice to kick off with the film. “If there’s one per- pleasures an actor can give us.
son in this world who didn’t find the least interest in this Then Depp began to hide—or allow
very publicized trial, it’s me,” he said. “I don’t care what it’s himself to be hidden—in the bedrag-
about. I care about Johnny Depp as an actor.” gled pirate ruffles and rock-star eye-
Frémaux’s ostrich-head-in-the-sand act is disingenuous. liner of the dismal Pirates of the Carib-

S O U R C E C R E D I T: E V E R E T T C O L L E C T I O N (2), G E T T Y I M A G E S ; C O U R T E S Y C A N N E S F I L M F E S T I VA L (4)
But his last two statements entwine opposing ideas that bean movies, and the “Look at me!”
bear thinking about. Is it possible to care about acts Depp multitoned pancake of Burton’s ex-
may have committed, and to care about what happens to haustingly eccentric characters. His
women when they come forward with allegations of do- lost-boy naivete began to come off
mestic violence? And also to care about Johnny Depp as an as shtick. In the Pirates movies, his
actor—as a performer who, at certain points of his career, googly-eyed mannerisms drove audi-
if no longer, was capable of bringing us the kind of joy that ences wild. Why bother with acting
we go to the movies for in the first place? when gimmickry will do the trick?
According to the current rules of
Though Depp sTill has legions of fans who will not give how we’re supposed to view male art-
up the Black Pearl for love or money—quite a few showed ists accused of unspeakable behavior,
up in Cannes to cheer him on—many of us who used to love it should be easier to despise Depp as
him can’t look at him as we did in the 1990s. The Depp of a human now that it’s become so hard
Donnie Brasco, of What’s Eating Gilbert Grape, of Ed Wood to defend him as an actor. Righteous
and Dead Man, was magnificent to behold, an actor of anger is the easiest fix for complex
microshaded subtlety and unforced charm. Even his roles feelings. Even defending the artistry
in the earlier Tim Burton movies—as a somber, stammer- of a great or once great filmmaker
ing Ichabod Crane in Sleepy Hollow, or a winsome artifi- or actor—Roman Polanski, Woody
cial boy in Edward Scissorhands—showed layers of depth Allen, Bernardo Bertolucci—who has
64 Time June 12, 2023
 thunderously dumb, but it’s not un-
watchable. Maïwenn herself plays the REVIEWS
Countess du Barry, painting her as the
Fun Gal of Versailles—wearing big
clown stripes! donning breeches and
tromping around on horseback! And
she “owns” a Black child, given to her
by her paramour, but don’t hold that
against her—she’s really nice to him.
As the ruler who ostensibly adores
her, Depp—in some scenes his cheeks
and lips monstrously rouged, almost
like a garish Edward Scissorhands—
merely looks like a guy who has no
idea how he landed in Versailles. His
lines, in French, have a waxy stiffness.
His eyes look beady and glazed. This is
Depp’s most high-profile film in years,
but it’s less a comeback than a tepid
lurching into a small spotlight.
The photos and footage of Depp
on the red carpet don’t make the story
any happier. He looked to be pleased
by the attention, but there was also
something tentative about him, as if
he’d lost his grip on this particular
reality—the false reality of a crowd’s
adoration at a place like Cannes—and
was very slowly getting it back.
committed or been accused of com- Reclaiming that false reality is
mitting a heinous act is enough to get likely to do Depp more harm than
you branded a traitor. Essayist Claire good. A 2018 Rolling Stone profile by
Dederer has just written a whole book Stephen Rodrick, written in the af-
about how we might think about what termath of the Depp-Heard breakup,
she calls “monstrous men.” It’s normal showed the actor spending much of
to feel conflicted about artists we love, his time locked away in a mansion for-
or once loved, but we’ve somehow tress, guzzling expensive wine, and
been conditioned to believe that even nursing the depths of his melancholy.
conflicted feelings are bad. God forbid Depp is an adult; he’s about to turn
we hold two or more ideas at once. 60. He has made his own decisions
and created his own problems. But
I no longer have much invested in I don’t think anyone who truly cares
who the actor Johnny Depp is today, about acting and actors should feel
and I have serious doubts about happy about what he’s become. To see
him as a human being. But watch- him looking as if all the life has been
ing him both in Jeanne du Barry and sucked out of him—not to mention
on the red carpet only made me mis- the creeping jowlishness, the deep-
erable. Jeanne du Barry is tastefully ening frown lines, and other physi-
handsome, as well as sometimes cal indignities that come with get-
ting older—is akin to watching a bird
fall from the sky, though birds don’t
I don’t think anyone bring about their own downfall. Depp
is a nest of tragedies, an extraordi-
who cares about acting narily gifted man who has most likely
and actors should hurt others, as well as himself. He’s
his own worst enemy, and no matter
feel happy about how loudly the crowd cheers for you,
what he’s become there’s no valor in that. □
65
 ADVERTISEMENT

CHINAWATCH
PRESENTED BY CHINA DAILY

Yellow River
protection
stepped up
Water replenishment, conservation efforts paying off

BY SUN SHANGWU, mous regions along the river, and

LI JING and during his trips, emphasized the
ZHAO RUIXUE importance of ecological con-
servation and the concept that
As a chilly spring breeze “lucid waters and lush mountains
lightly brushed his tanned face, are invaluable assets”.
Wang Lidong walked around In October 2021, Xi inspected
the Yellow River Delta National the Yellow River estuary, includ-
Nature Reserve in Dongying, ing the reserve in Dongying. ects in the delta, including water system in the wetlands, we
Shandong province. He checked the waterway’s supplements, cordgrass treat- have been replenishing water at
He checked water conserva- tributaries, the wetlands’ ment, and offshore biodiversity the site,” Wang said. He added
tion projects and also the water environment and learned about conservation, which has helped that the abundance of water in
level in the wetlands — part of ecological protection and strengthen the city’s wetland the wetlands will significantly
a day’s work for Wang, who has high-quality development in the ecosystem. prevent destruction of the
been involved with protecting Yellow River Basin. At the reserve, a large expanse ecological system from the
the reserve for three decades. “The Yellow River is our moth- of water stretches out into the encroachment of seawater.
“The environment at the re- er river, and conservation is the distance. Reeds sway in the wind In the past three years, more
serve has significantly improved precondition. We must make along both sides of a wooden than 126.8 billion gallons of water
over the years. It is now home unremitting efforts to protect it,” walkway. Aerial views show a from the Yellow River has been
to many birds, so all the hard Xi said during an inspection visit series of connected waterways, replenished at the reserve. Data
work has been worthwhile,” said to the estuary. which resemble slender veins. from the reserve’s management
Wang, an engineer working on The estuary wetlands, typical Back in the 1980s and ’90s, committee show that this work
the wetland restoration project of those found elsewhere in the coastal erosion, seawater has effectively alleviated soil
at the reserve, which is situated world, include lakes, swamps encroachment and drought salinization in the wetlands.
on a large expanse of wetlands and tidal flats. caused the wetlands to shrink. “We have built channels and
in the Yellow River Delta. In following Xi’s concept of Wang said the delta’s rich sluices to ensure that water is
The river, China’s second ecological civilization, Wang wetland ecosystems were also replenished when needed at the
longest, zigzags its way through said the work carried out in seriously threatened by oil wetlands,” Wang said.
a plateau blanketed with rich Dongying has focused mainly production, industrial waste pol- The reserve management
soil. It carries millions of tons of on protecting and restoring the lution and land reclamation. committee divided the wetlands
soil east every year, some of it wetlands, and acts as a model The reserve, established in into 49 areas based on the
reaching the estuary, where the for the harmonious coexistence October 1992 to protect the growth conditions for animals
waterway flows into the Bohai of humans and nature. wetlands, covers about 590 and plants, ensuring that
Sea in Dongying, forming the In recent years, the city has square miles, with the wetlands each area receives the correct
wetlands. spent 1.36 billion yuan ($196.7 comprising most of the area. amount of water.
President Xi Jinping has visited million) to support 17 wetland “As water is crucial to main- Nurtured by the waterway,
the nine provinces and autono- protection and restoration proj- taining the healthy ecological the animals and plants are

The Yellow River Delta National Nature Reserve boasts rich wetland systems and provides good living conditions for wild birds. The number of avian species in the
Yellow River Delta has risen to 373. PHOTOS BY GUO XULEI / XINHUA AND LIU YUELIANG / FOR CHINA DAILY

China Watch materials are distributed by China Daily Distribution Corp. on behalf of China Daily, Beijing, China.
 ADVERTISEMENT

Shanghai
remains
magnet
for foreign
investment
BY SHI JING
and LIN SHUJUAN

French banking group BNP Vehicles made by SAIC Motor, based in Shanghai, wait to be exported at a
Paribas’ confidence in the port in the city. FANG ZHE / XINHUA
Chinese market has remained
undeterred by global market tionwide in July 2017. In March,
volatility and the pandemic. the Ministry of Commerce said
The group’s continued efforts are being made to trim
investment is proof of this: the national negative list to
It has placed 5.3 billion yuan further relax the limit on foreign
($753 million) of additional eq- capital in certain areas.
thriving, Wang said. uity in its China joint ventures Lingang Special Area, part of
Work is being carried out in over the past 18 months and the Shanghai FTZ that was of-
Dongying to restore seagrass expects to further invest 1.5 Workers put final touches to a vehicle ficially launched in August 2019,
beds and native plants growing billion to 2 billion yuan in the at Tesla’s gigafactory in Shanghai. is a good example of Shanghai’s
along waterways in the wetlands. next 12 months. The company GAO ERQIANG / CHINA DAILY advanced two-way opening-up.
In April, groups of birds were has founded 11 joint ventures Gu Jun, director of the Shang-
seen resting on ponds on both with Chinese partners, includ- 528 trillion yuan in 2012. hai Municipal Development and
sides of a road leading to the ing State-owned enterprises, The progress made in the Reform Commission, said that
reserve. Some birds skimmed privately owned companies financial sector is just one ex- in recent years Lingang has
across the water surface. and financial institutions. ample of the numerous efforts formed a systematic opening-
Shan Kai, a senior engineer at At least 122 foreign asset made by Shanghai to advance up mechanism featuring
the reserve, said: “The environ- management companies from its two-way opening-up. The freedom of trade, investment,
ment in the delta provides good 13 countries have set up opera- China International Import capital flow, transportation and
living conditions for the birds.” tions in the Lujiazui financial Expo, or CIIE, which has been employment, as well as the
Statistics show that the hub in eastern Shanghai. Of held annually in the city since rapid connection of information.
number of avian species in the the 1,736 licensed financial 2018, has served as an impor- Tesla has benefited from the
delta has risen from 187 in the institutions registered in the tant platform for advancing systematic advantages in Lin-
years after the reserve was city, 539 are foreign financial China’s all-round opening-up. gang. It held the groundbreak-
established to 373. service providers. Nearly half In addition to the $345.8 bil- ing ceremony for its Lingang
Last year, 470 chicks were of the foreign banks, jointly- lion of intended deals reached gigafactory in early January
born to Oriental storks at the held asset management com- at the past five expos, up to 2019, and the first car was com-
reserve, while 315 red-crowned panies and foreign insurance 2,000 products, technologies pleted at the facility 11 months
cranes were observed wintering companies operating in China and services have made their later. Tesla’s vice-president Tao
at the wetlands. have set up regional headquar- China or global debuts at CIIE. Lin said: “Shanghai has pro-
The city is now working to ters in Shanghai. Swiss industrial group ABB vided Tesla with development
build a Yellow River Estuary Many initial attempts to has attended all five expos, opportunities in China.”
National Park to better preserve facilitate the two-way opening- globally showcasing its latest The presence of foreign
wetlands and biodiversity in the up of the Chinese financial breakthroughs such as the gas companies and investment is of
Yellow River Delta. market have been made in leak detection technology ABB great importance to Shanghai.
Shanghai. HoverGuard. ABB’s China chair- The city has held global invest-
JP Morgan, whose China man Gu Chunyuan said the ment promotion conferences
headquarters is located in expo helps the company better annually since 2020, reaching
Shanghai, was given approval understand market demand 850 cooperation agreements
in August 2021 to set up the and the latest industry trends. and attracting investment of
first wholly foreign-owned The China (Shanghai) about 1.8 trillion yuan.
securities company in China. Pilot Free Trade Zone, officially Some 70,000 foreign com-
Shanghai’s role as an inter- launched in 2013 and under- panies have set up operations
national financial center has went expansion in 2015 and in Shanghai. A total of 907
been consolidated. Data from 2019, serves as one of the best multinational companies have
the Shanghai Municipal Devel- examples of systematic innova- set up regional headquarters
opment and Reform Commis- tion. The negative list for foreign in the city, which is also home
sion show the total trading investment, first adopted by to 538 multinationals’ regional
Birds in the Yellow River Delta reserve. value in the city reached 2,933 the Shanghai FTZ when it was research and development
ZHANG XIAOLONG / FOR CHINA DAILY trillion yuan last year, up from launched, was promoted na- centers.

Additional information is on file with the Department of Justice, Washington, D.C.

 8 QUESTIONS

Satya Nadella The man who has helmed Microsoft since

2014 talks AI, jobs, and the case for developing
the new technology despite growing concerns

What is going to change in the abdicate our own responsibility.

workplace with the adoption of It’s a most stochastic complex sys-
AI? AI is moving from being auto- What is one tem [using random and probabilistic
pilot to being a co-pilot that helps us elements]. There are many stochas-
at our work. You put the human in unintended tic complex systems we deal with.
the center, and then create this tool
around them that empowers them
consequence We characterize them using lots of
other evaluation tests and make sure
and takes the drudgery away from of AI that that they’re safely deployed. So it’s
work. How much time do we spend
just coordinating and how much
regulators not the first time we are dealing
with complexity in the real world.
time do we spend creating—which is should watch [We see it in] biology, environment.
what gives us real joy? If we can tilt
that balance towards more creativity, out for? We just observe systems like
we will all be better off. biology. We created AI. Should
that make us more cautious? The
What are you doing to address genesis of the computer industry was
concerns about job loss? One of the creating tools for the human mind,
things that I’m most excited about is so that we can do more, understand
how [AI] democratizes access to new more. So creating technologies
skills. That will be a massive increase that allow us as humans to be able
in total developers, because the bar- to increase our knowledge, do
riers to being a software developer science, help the human condition
are going to come down. is the core to enlightenment. And
so therefore trying to say “Now is
Would you agree to any limits on the time to stop” doesn’t seem the
use of AI for military applications? right approach.
We’ve always said that we want to
make sure that the best technology There seems to be an urgency to
that Microsoft has is available to make sure we’re using AI to the
the very institutions that protect best of our abilities. What is driv-
our freedom. ing that? Shareholders? The re-
search community? Executives at
What’s your response to calls to Microsoft? The world’s economic
put on the brakes on training new growth has stalled. The last time eco-
AI? There are two sets of things that nomic growth could be attributed to
are important for us to have robust information technology was when
discussions about. The first one PCs became ubiquitous. If we re-
is here and now, how are the real- ally have a goal that everybody in the
world consequences of any AI being world should have economic growth
deployed. Second, how to make sure and it should be climate positive, we
that any intelligence system we cre- need to build new technology that
ate is in control and aligned with achieves both those goals. That’s why
human values. But ultimately it’s for I think AI is exciting. What if we can
the regulators and the governments have that type of economic growth
J A S O N R E D M O N D — A F P/G E T T Y I M A G E S

involved to make these decisions. that we enjoyed in the early parts

of the 20th century, but this time
There’s an argument that the de- around it’s much more even—not
velopers behind AI don’t even just in the West Coast of the United
quite understand the results that States [but] everywhere in the world.
AI is generating. Should that give That’s a beautiful world that I aspire
us pause? I think we shouldn’t towards. —ALANA SEMUELS
68 TIME June 12, 2023
TIMECOVERSTORE.COM