Beautiful ideas of the world’s most innovative firms
Great ideas can arrive in a moment of inspiration, plucked out of the ether fully formed. More often, though, the muses don’t pick up the phone. Innovation is mess and toil, and often found outside your four walls. “No matter who you are,” said tech pioneer Bill Joy, “most of the smartest people work for someone else.” The world’s most innovative firms, whose ideas are featured here, will always admit brilliance is harder than it looks
Curated By: Forbes
Kone
World’s tallest laboratory
5-yr SaleS growth/ 5-yr total return: 42%/ 124%
The Finnish manufacturer of elevators and escalators has to keep up with the demands of developers seeking to erect ever taller buildings. One limit to superskyscrapers is the performance of steel ropes on which the elevators hang. Existing ropes are too stretchy and heavy and waste a lot of energy as they move. Elevators have to halt if buildings sway too much. Kone just made starchitects happier with its new superlight UltraRope, which can handle elevators traveling to heights up to 3,280 feet. Kone subsequently won the contract for Saudi Arabia’s Kingdom Tower, slated to become the world’s tallest building. Kone cooked up the UltraRope at its big R&D lab in Hyvinkaa, Finland, and perfected it at the Tytyri limestone mine, where Kone operates the world’s highest elevator test shaft. It can simulate elevators that reach 1,040 feet and flies cars up and down at a maximum speed of 38 miles an hour
World’s tallest laboratory
5-yr SaleS growth/ 5-yr total return: 42%/ 124%
The Finnish manufacturer of elevators and escalators has to keep up with the demands of developers seeking to erect ever taller buildings. One limit to superskyscrapers is the performance of steel ropes on which the elevators hang. Existing ropes are too stretchy and heavy and waste a lot of energy as they move. Elevators have to halt if buildings sway too much. Kone just made starchitects happier with its new superlight UltraRope, which can handle elevators traveling to heights up to 3,280 feet. Kone subsequently won the contract for Saudi Arabia’s Kingdom Tower, slated to become the world’s tallest building. Kone cooked up the UltraRope at its big R&D lab in Hyvinkaa, Finland, and perfected it at the Tytyri limestone mine, where Kone operates the world’s highest elevator test shaft. It can simulate elevators that reach 1,040 feet and flies cars up and down at a maximum speed of 38 miles an hour
