16 ★ FINANCIAL TIMES Tuesday 3 March 2020
T I M B R A D S H AW A N D L E S L I E H O O KThe advanced research lab atGoogle
parentAlphabetis taking aim at an
unlikelytargetforitstech:fish.In an attempt to boost the use of fish
farms and reduce consumption of wild
fish and meat, X Development has
invented a system that will eventually
recognise and monitor every individual
fish in farms that hold hundreds of
thousands.
The three-year-old project, dubbed
Tidal, is working with farms in Europe
and Asia. It pairs underwater cameras
with AI techniques such as computer
vision to track species including salmon
and yellowtail.
The hope, according to Astro Teller,
director of X, is to reduce dependence
on land-based proteins such as beef
and free the oceans from damaging
fishing practices.
“The oceans are falling apart thanks
to us, thanks to humanity. So something
has to change,” he said.
“No more [eating of ] fish isn’t
really on the cards anytime soon. What
can we do to make it as good for the
planet as possible?”
Grace Young, a research engineer on
Tidal, said: “Developing technology for
the underwater environment is really
hard: it’s dark, it’s cold, it’s unforgiving,
saltwater kills electronics, the pressure
is crushing, the temperature can shiftfrom above boiling to below freezing in a
matter of minutes.”
T h e t e a m o f a ro u n d a d o z e n
X staff had to build a fresh data set of
fish to train its algorithms, initially by
filming in a paddling pool at its Silicon
Valley headquarters.
Its stereo camera rig , which is
lowered into a farming enclosure, is
able to track fish through their
development, using their particular
shapes and movements.
“Some of these signals are happening
in milliseconds,” said Neil Davé, who
leads the Tidal project.
“You’d be unable to see it with the
human eye.”
Data and insights collected from
Tidal’s system are sent to farmers
to help optimise feeding, reducewaste, and maintain healthy fish,
in the hope of easing some environmen-
talists’ concerns about overuse of
antibiotics.
“Really what we are hoping to do is
provide these tools to farmers so that
they can move their operations towards
more sustainability,” said Mr Davé.
“There may be an opportunity there
to relieve some pressure on wild
fishing if we made aquaculture very
compelling from an operational and
environmental perspective.”
The sensors Tidal develops for
fishing could be used for more
general ocean monitoring, where
researchers often struggle to keep track
of endangered species such as whales
and penguins.
The research team formerly known asGoogle X is best known for its work on
self-driving cars, internet balloons, and
delivery drones.
Environmental concerns had risen
higher on X’s agenda, Mr Teller said,
even though Alphabet last month
shut its power-generating kites
ventureMakani.
Its other efforts related to sustainabil-
ity include domestic geothermal power,
storing energy in salt, and using drones
to monitor farming on land.
While Tidal is still early in its develop-
ment, Mr Teller said he hoped it could
become a “substantial business” as well
as delivering environmental benefits.
“There are several trillion dollars a
year at stake in the oceans and in
humanity’s relationship with the
oceans,” he said.Technology
Alphabet unveils fish tracking system in sustainability push
Underwater cameras are paired with AI techniques such as computer visionM A X S E D D O N— MOSCOW
JA N E C R O F T— LONDON
Shares inTCS, owner of Russian online
bankTinkoff, fell yesterday after the
company disclosed its founderOleg
Tinkovis facing extradition to the US on
atax evasion charge.
Mr Tinkov, 52, was arrested in Lon-
don last month on a provisional warrant
at the request of the US, where he was a
citizen until 2013, according to court
documents.
The US Internal Revenue Service
alleges that Mr Tinkov submitted a false
tax return under-reporting his 2013
income and net worth to the US tax
authorities “dishonestly and intending
thereby to make a gain for himself or
another”.
Last Thursday, Mr Tinkov, whose net
worth is estimated at $2.4bn by Forbes,
posted bail of £20m.
Mr Tinkov will be electronically
monitored, must observe a 7pm to 7am
curfew, stay away from airports and
travel hubs and remain within theGreater London area. He has also had
to surrender his passports and must
report to the police three times a week.
No date has been set for his extradition
hearing.
The extradition hearing will not
decide on Mr Tinkov’s innocence or
guilt, only on whether the allegations
constituted a criminal offence in the UK
at the time.
Extradition proceedings from the UK
can take years, with defendants able to
lodge multiple appeals. A spokesperson
for Mr Tinkov declined to comment.
“Mr Tinkov has informed us that his
legal team is working to resolve thisissue as soon as possible,” TCS, Tinkoff’s
holding company, said in a statement.
TCS added that Mr Tinkov, who chairs
the bank’s board of directors, was not
involved in Tinkoff’s day-to-day man-
agement and said he was “attending
these court hearings in his capacity as a
private individual”.
The son of a Siberian coal miner,
Mr Tinkov became one of Russia’s
best-known businessmen, selling every-
thing from beer and dumplings to elec-
tronics.
Tinkoff, launched in 2006, has
expanded from credit cards to full-serv-
ice retail banking. Mr Tinkov owns a 40per cent stake in TCS but delegates man-
agement of the bank to British chief
executiveOliver Hughes.
The London-listed bank is one of Rus-
sia’s most popular stocks among inves-
tors, who own 53 per cent of its publicly
traded shares but are wary of the pro-
vocative messages Mr Tinkov posts on
social media.
“Perhaps TCS is better off without
him?” Luis Saenz, co-head of equities at
BCS Global Markets, said in a note to cli-
ents. “The amount the IRS is looking for
is not known but it may come to where
[Mr Tinkov] may need to sell more of
his stake.”Financials
Extradition case hits shares in Tinkoff owner
TCS slips as online bank’s
founder faces UK hearing
over US tax evasion charge
COMPANIES
Jack Welch, who has died at the age of
84, was one of America’s most influen-
tial managers and an embodiment of
the past century’s “cult of the CEO”.
As head of General Electric from 1981
to 2001, he took the company founded
by Thomas Edison a century before and
brutally transformed it into the biggest
US company by market value.
Believing that leaders should appoint
lieutenants cleverer than they are, he
created a system of managerial excel-
lence that spawned a whole cohort of
senior executives, many of whom went
on to head other companies. Indirectly,
he inspired many more.
Yet Welch’s departure as chief execu-
tive marked the high point of his — and
arguably GE’s — reputation. Within
days, the 9/11 attacks had rocked the
company. His successor,Jeffrey Immelt,
fought to stabilise the conglomerate.
Since Mr Immelt left in 2017, the
group has struggled to shed the burden
of liabilities left by GE Capital, the
over-mighty finance arm Welch himself
created.
Donald Trump, who Welch backed in
the 2016 US presidential election,
tweeted his sympathies for Welch’s fam-
ily yesterday. “There was no corporate
leader like ‘neutron’ Jack. He was my
friend and supporter. We made wonder-
ful deals together,” Mr Trump wrote.
As CEO, Welch’s central contribution
was to realise, earlier than most, the
threat posed by intensifying global com-
petition. To confront this, he used tech-
niques that later became common in
corporate America: shedding labour,
cutting out layers of bureaucracy and
closing or selling divisions.
In his first 10 years at the helm, Welch
slashed GE’s workforce by 170,000. This
earned him the nickname he detested:
Neutron Jack. He also received public
criticism for abandoning markets hal-
lowed by GE tradition, such as con-
sumer electronics. Welch was unrepent-
ant. GE had to be first or second in its
markets worldwide, he said. Businesses
that did not fit that criterion must be
fixed, sold or closed.
By focusing on threats from Asia in
the 1980s, and from the first generation
of internet upstarts in the following dec-
ade, Welch energised his staff, even if
those threats never fully materialised.
Equally important was his emphasis
on breaking down barriers within GE,
and with the outside world. The ugly
phrase he coined for this “boundary-
lessness” became central to GE’s man-
agement culture during his tenure.
In Welch’s view, this approach justi-
fied GE’s existence as a conglomerate.
Its operations, from medical scanners to
television networks, were wildly dispa-
rate. But the culture of openness, rein-
forced by compulsory attendance at
GE’s management school in Crotonville,
NY, where Welch often led classes, was
aimed at a structure in which capital
and personnel could be switched freely
between divisions. He later partially
renounced this approach, with its unre-
mitting focus on shareholder value.
John Francis Welch Jr was born in
1935 in Peabody, Massachusetts, 10
miles north of Boston. His grandparents
were Irish Catholic immigrants, his
father a train conductor. His chief influ-
ence was his mother, Grace, who taught
him — in a pattern familiar among only
children — that there was no limit to hispotential. He opened his 2001 book
Jack: Straight from the Gutwith an anec-
dote in which she upbraided him for a
petulant display after losing a high-
school ice hockey game: “You punk! If
you don’t know how to lose, you’ll never
know how to win. If you don’t know this,
you shouldn’t be playing.”
Welch liked to present himself in later
life as a rough diamond, rasping and
profane in conversation, and fond of
contact sports. But his youth was studi-
ous. After a degree in chemical engi-
neering at the University of Massachu-
setts, he took a doctorate at the Univer-
sity of Illinois. By the time of his first job,
at GE’s plastics division, he was 25.
Meeting Welch during his ascendancy
could be an arresting experience. Short,
exuberant and pugnacious, he had a
penetrating stare and a taste for argu-
ment. His private views on some of his
European competitors were scathing.
He described Lord Weinstock, his
opposite number at the General Electric
Company of the UK, as nothing more
than a certified accountant. He saw
Rolls-Royce, which competed with GE
in aero engines, as less a corporation
than a subsidised form of outdoor relief.beyond his chosen date of departure to
pursue a swansong takeover of rival
Honeywell that was scotched by the EU
on competition grounds. In a period
marked by corporate scandals, his repu-
tation was tarnished when details of lav-
ish retirement benefits emerged during
the divorce from his second wife, Jane.
He agreed to renounce most of them.
Still, Welch continued to exert influ-
ence. Even in his eighties, he was a regu-
lar on business television, offering acer-
bic commentary on 21st-century corpo-
rate US. He launched a Jack Welch Man-
agement Institute to perpetuate his
approach and brand. He also offered a
retrospective judgment on the approach
to capitalism with which he had once
been indelibly associated: “On the face
of it, shareholder value is the dumbest
idea in the world,” he told the Financial
Times in 2009 in the aftermath of the
financial crisis. “Shareholder value is a
result, not a strategy... Your main con-
stituencies are your employees, your
customers and your products.”
Welch and his first wife Carolyn had
two daughters and two sons. His third
wife, Suzy, survives him.
Tony Jackson and Andrew HillObituary
Imperious manager
who embodied
‘cult of the CEO’
Jack Welch
Former General Electric CEO
1935-
For Asian competitors, by contrast, he
had the utmost respect. He was
impressed by the idea that the US’s high
standard of living was at risk from
emerging nations. “Who says we
deserve what we’ve got?” he would say.
“These people are after our lives. We’ve
got to work like dogs.”
The chief case against Welch is that he
embodied a form of late 20th-century
capitalism that elevated shareholder
returns above all other considerations.
The old GE was a classic case of the
social corporation, where workers spent
their lives and formed their friendships.
By the end of his tenure, much of that
was gone. Companies cannot guarantee
jobs, he said; only customers. No one
likes change, and the function of the
chief executive is to impose it.
He rewarded GE shareholders with
preternaturally smooth double-digit
earnings growth year after year. At the
same time, he divided staff into “A, B
and C players”, ranked on a “vitality
curve”, with the Cs in the bottom 10 per
cent ruthlessly ditched.
By his retirement in 2001, Welch had
become emblematic of a fading era of
imperial chief executives. He stayed onJack Welch was
head of General
Electric from
1981 to 2001,
brutally
transforming
the industrial
group into the
biggest US
company by
market value
Brooks Kraft/Getty ImagesOleg Tinkov,
who owns a
40 per cent
stake in TCS, is
one of Russia’s
best-known
businessmenTinkov
mustobserve a
curfew, stayaway from
airportsand remain
in LondonWelch
dividedstaff into
‘A, B and Cplayers’,
with the Csin the
bottom10 per cent
ruthlesslyditched
Contracts & Tenders
Legal Notices
Legal Notices
MARCH 3 2020 Section:Companies Time: 2/3/2020 - 19: 20 User: timothy.digby Page Name: CONEWS3, Part,Page,Edition: LON, 16 , 1