What I wrote last week
The three changes I made to my lifestyle during Covid
Business
Shopify’s Black Friday sales in 2020 exceeded $2.4 billion, a 75% growth year over year
Reddit now has 52 million daily active users, up by 44% YoY
An excellent piece on the longevity of some amazing small businesses in Japan. A mochi shop that has been around for more than 1,000 years? You read that right. 1,000 years, not 10, not 100, not 500. 1000! And many of them maintain enough in reserve to continue operations for 2 years in case there is an economic downturn.
Some great statistics on Spotify’s podcast ecosystem
Apple officially launched their new App Store Small Business Program. An important detail to note is that the $1million threshold is after Apple takes its cut, not before. Hence, it will give many developers more breathing room.
How Apple approached its retail stores during Covid
Technology
A deep dive into why M1 is so fast
What I found interesting
A Russian female chess player beat known male players in the 1920s and 1930s, apparently the inspiration for the series “The Queen’s Gambit” on Netflix
A horrifying account of how hospitals are struggling to keep up with the rising number of Covid-19 patients. It’s unfathomably insane to read, like a fictional story, not what actually is transpiring.
100 powerful pictures of 2020 by Reuters
The Sistine Chapel of South America. It looks utterly amazing
Derek Thomson of the Atlantic wrote about Democrats’ problems and what is wrong with the Electoral College. Read the excerpt below. If you support the GOP, then it’s good news. But if the shoe is on the other foot, as in the case for Democratic voters, saying that it is unfair is a massive understatement
The GOP currently holds both Senate seats in Alaska, Arkansas, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nebraska, South Dakota, and Wyoming. Those 11 states have 22 senators who collectively represent fewer people than the population of California, which has two Senate seats.
In the 2018 midterms, Democratic Senate candidates won 18 million more votes than Republicans nationwide, and the party still lost two net Senate seats.
One analysis of Census Bureau data projected that by 2040, roughly half of the population will be represented by 16 senators; the other, more rural half will have 84 senators at their disposal.
Source: The Atlantic
Minh Quang Duong 