Huntsman finds reason for optimism on Chinese cybercrime

The U.S. finally seems to care about it.

FORTUNE -- Jon Huntsman, one of the most vocal U.S. voices against Chinese government-sponsored intellectual-property theft, said Friday there is some cause for optimism on the topic.

If nothing else, Huntsman said, U.S. concern over Chinese behavior has become so pronounced that the issue for the first time is getting top billing among senior policymakers. "In the past it has always gotten second-tier billing," MORE

Apple does a 180 with suppliers in China

Apple is now one of the most aggressive tech companies in adopting progressive environmental policies in China.

FORTUNE -- Ma Jun, the noted Chinese environmental activist, says Apple has gone in a short period of time from being the most uncooperative of electronics companies to "one of the most proactive IT suppliers" of all.

Speaking at a panel on supply-chain trends at the  Fortune Global Forum in Chengdu, China, Ma practically gushed about Apple's MORE

Sheryl Sandberg: Facebook has its head on straight

Sandberg, better known these days for her blockbuster book Lean In, reminded the audience at the AllThingsD conference that she's still helping run Facebook too.

The unbearable lightness of what Tim Cook says

Apple's CEO exercised his ability to out-wait his interviewers at AllThingsD.

FORTUNE -- In trying to cover Tim Cook's roundly criticized performance at a major technology conference Tuesday evening near Los Angeles, reporters grasped at straws for kernels of news from the Apple CEO. The Wall Street Journal, for instance, whose parent company owns the conference, suggested Cook indicated a "wearable" computing product was imminent. (He merely called the segment "incredibly MORE

How Change.org taps into the crowd

Change.org founder Ben Rattray talks about how his petitions website is able to attract users and investors.

FORTUNE -- Change.org isn't a nonprofit, but the company's CEO Ben Rattray isn't interested in maximizing returns, either. For Rattray and his six-year-old company, which hosts online petitions geared toward social and political change, the end goal is empowering citizens, not making gobs of cash. With more than 35 million users worldwide targeting problems MORE

Look at what the radicals at Groupon are working on

Yes, Groupon's whimsy-prone founder is gone. That doesn't mean the e-commerce company has changed its ambitions much.

FORTUNE -- Eric Lefkofsky does not know what became of Montgomery Ward & Co., the iconic Chicago catalog merchandiser and retailer that was built to last more than 100 years.

I am of two minds on his knowledge gap. On the one hand, you'd think that the man whose several companies, including the much-criticized deal-promotion site MORE

Fortune 500: Brands that last

What we learned visiting Fortune 500 companies around Silicon Valley.

FORTUNE -- I heard a wise person say recently that we don't work for companies. We work for brands. That resonated for me. I work for Fortune, one of the great American brands, a name that stands for quality journalism, seriousness of purpose, intellectual curiosity, analytical rigor and all the things that have given Fortune the staying power of decades.

Schmaltzy? Guilty as charged. MORE

In praise of short-termism

The environmental movement generally lacks an appreciation for the imperatives of business.

FORTUNE -- Peter Seligmann, the chairman and CEO of Conservation International, has a solution for our environmental ills: He wishes companies didn't have to report quarterly earnings. It's a familiar refrain for many who lament our society's short-term thinking. In Seligmann's case, he thinks that if big, publicly traded corporations didn't think on a quarterly basis they could do MORE

Pressure builds on Apple to make a move

Despite the company's announcement of a dividend increase and stock buyback, the truth is Apple didn't have much to say. And that may be problematic.

FORTUNE -- Here's what Apple told investors about its business Tuesday: Margins, revenues, and profits in the next quarter all will be worse than investors had expected. Here's what Apple didn't address Wednesday: Specific plans for any new product categories or personnel moves, either among its long-serving MORE

Gavin Newsom: Government tech is stuck in the past

The former San Francisco mayor and current lieutenant governor of California spoke to Fortune in a wide-ranging interview on technology and the future of government.

FORTUNE -- Gavin Newsom, the former mayor of San Francisco and current lieutenant governor of California, thinks government technology is stuck in the past. His new book, Citizenville, outlines Newsom's hope for a more open and technologically connected collaboration between the government and the governed. Fortune's MORE