A New York furniture startup shipped millions of desks and chairs to more than 30 countries, then bet its next act on a stranger idea: hardware that reasons. Here is how a Kickstarter desk turned into an AI hardware workshop.
A century of modernism now runs through one portfolio - from Aeron chairs and Knoll classics to textiles, healthcare rooms and home stores. The bet is that the future of furniture belongs to a company that can sell an object, furnish a building and explain why the room should work that way.
Staples spent four decades selling the things that make work possible. Its more interesting act is turning a familiar office-supply store into the place where America finishes the fiddly jobs the internet cannot.