What I wrote last week
I wrote down a few thoughts on Netflix
Business
A great Business Breakdown episode on Petco. If you are not too familiar with the company or the pet supply industry, it’ll be worth your one hour.
Singapore Airlines Doubles Down on the E-Commerce Trend by Carriers. “In November, Singapore Airlines [SIA] CEO Choon Phong Goh described Pelago during an investor call as “a brand new business that’s been set up within SIA” with a goal of “extending the SIA experience from the skies to the ground. While airlines have upsold passengers on extras for years, what’s new is the hands-on approach to sourcing and marketing the content instead of using affiliate deals.”
Beijing orders Tencent to end exclusive music licensing deals in a first for the country. I am very reluctant to invest in Chinese companies precisely because of this.
Finance Chiefs Are Still Trying to Replace Excel With New Tools. Excel is a very powerful tool and we are not completely working without it at least in the next two decades. However, the over-reliance on Excel is damaging in a sense that it prevents companies from upgrading internal tools that can provide better collaboration and data interoperability. I am speaking from experience because that’s one of my personal frustrations at work.
How Gap’s new loyalty program ties together its multiple brands. I visited both Gap and Banana Republic recently. I couldn’t recall a nice experience in terms of finding out information about the rewards program. I suspect it is due to the staggered roll-out of the new rewards program and Omaha, Nebraska isn’t high on the priority list. Nonetheless, consolidating multiple rewards programs, making it simple for customer to understand and offering real values sound like music to my ear. Their offerings are still not best in class. For their sake, I hope they continue to upgrade the rewards benefits.
Reebok got the better of Nike 30 years ago but fell into oblivion. This is the story of how Rebook’s fall from grace happened. The article put a lot of emphasis on Adidas’ mismanagement of Reebook. That happens all the time. Executives promise the sun and moon in M&A, but failures are more common than many care to admit. I don’t know whether without Adidas, Reebok would have still been able to compete with Nike. That’s far from certain. Anyway, another business case study that many can draw lessons from.
Apple makes its M1 Mac case to enterprises. One of my bull cases for Apple is its potential in the enterprise market. Apple’s hardware is well-positioned to really attack this. Up to now, I don’t see a whole lot reported on its market share or Apple’s concrete strategy to go into this space. There is a lot of TAM to tap into here.
A nice profile piece on Bessemer Venture Partners. I like them because they seem very grounded, thoughtful and prudent with other people’s money. There are some firms that, in my opinion, tend to be too optimistic, to the point of being delusional in some deals. Plus, Bessemer publishes their investment memos that I like to read a lot. You can still be wildly successful while being different from the majority.
What I found interesting
Finland ends homelessness and provides shelter for all in need. Some food for thoughts for folks in America: is having the richest companies and individuals along side with grave inequality represented by a lot of homeless people better than a bit less wealth yet greater equality? As a reminder, Finland’s GDP Per Capita is higher than America’s
World’s cheapest energy storage will be an iron-air battery. The startup claimed that their revolutionary battery would cost only 1/10 as much as lithium batteries do. If that’s true, it will be huge.
Beneath Istanbul, Archaeologists Explore An Ancient City’s Byzantine Basements
What growing avocados in Sicily tells us about climate change and the future of food. Simply both fascinating and scary at the same time, if you ask me
Stats that may interest you
Minh Quang Duong 