Weekly readings – 9th March 2019

Shared scooters don’t last long – a bear case for shared e-scooters. I rode Lime once in Austin. Coming from a country where the primary transportation means is scooters, I see it first-hand what a similar experience is like. Don’t get me wrong. The technology is impressive, but I wasn’t that excited. There is a lot to figure, not only from the economic perspective, but also from the logistics side. People throw scooters left and right on pavements. When the number of scooters explodes, what would happen then? On top of that, there have been quite a number of documented accidents so far from scooters. Finally, I am a fan of public transportation. I’d love to see America invest more in public transit than in shared scooters.

Civil rights under Trump – Patriot Act with Hasan Minhaj. Important information on what is going on in the US and the Census going into 2020.

Warren Buffett’s FAQ. An impressive collection of WB’s perspectives in different areas

HQ2: Understanding What Happened & Why. I don’t really care that much about the whole situation because 1) different stakeholders (Amazon, citizens in the neighborhood, politicians who want to create jobs, politicians who dislike the potential impact on the neighborhood) have different interests. 2) Nobody could guarantee the outcome if the deal went through. Nonetheless, it’s a very good and informative piece, most of which I tend to agree with.

Its Not Capitalism, its Crony Capitalism. An interesting perspective that is elegantly explained. To me, greed is good, but too much greed is terrible. What people hate and talk about on the news is too much greed. Who wouldn’t want to make money out of their innovation or effort? On the other hand, if education and healthcare are too expensive to afford as they are in the US, why would it be a draconian thing to give some support to the citizens? Social benefits DONT equal to socialism. You also need a nationalization of the economy which the US doesn’t have.

How to Shoot on iPhone series. I am a big fan of short, simple and educational marketing videos. Love this series from Apple. If they can continue to release videos like these to help unlock the functionalities and usage of the hardware, chances are that users would love them even more.

This is actually a double. BestBuy and Target transformation. Retail is interesting as a space to watch. I don’t believe in the apocalypse of bricks-and-mortar stores as many predict. In fact, Target, as mentioned in the article, increased its footprint. I documented some retailers which increased footprint here as well. It’s a matter of responding to the changes in the business environment. If a retailer refuses to embrace technology or to change, the doom is imminent. But if you have a game plan to leverage technology to keep your competitive advantages, it’s not a “it’s Amazon’s to lose” situation. At least not yet.