What I wrote last week
Instacart – Profitable Yet With Major Concerns
Hidden Gem High-Yield Savings Account – No Fees – No Minimums – No Gotchas
Business
This Company Created a Return-to-Office Plan That Employees Actually Like. I believe that it’s better for an organization to have employees in the office as much as possible. Better moral, better culture and higher productivity. But what is best for an organization is not necessarily what is best for employees. Before Covid, workers didn’t even think that remote working was possible. Covid made it possible. Then, we can’t put the genie back in a bottle any more. So now, companies have to striker a balance between their interests and employees’. This seems like a pretty good attempt at that. “Smucker has adopted a return-to-office strategy that is unusual among U.S. companies. The company expects its roughly 1,300 Orrville-based corporate workers to be on site as little as six days a month, or about 25% of the time, depending on their roles. Employees are told to hit that threshold by coming in during 22 “core” weeks a year. Many employees can live anywhere in the U.S. so long as they pay their own way to get to Orrville for core weeks. This has led to a growing group of super-commuters who reside elsewhere but work in Orrville. Smucker publishes its core-weeks schedule a year in advance to allow staff and teams to plan. Most take place every other week except for July and December, when Smucker holds only one core week a month to allow for summer vacations and winter holidays. Leaders reserve meetings requiring deep focus for core weeks—say, an Uncrustables strategy session, a training for a customer-service team or a multiday business planning conference.”
Germany Is Losing Its Mojo. Finding It Again Won’t Be Easy. Every time I read about Germany’s energy policy which still favors gas, scales down renewables and strays away from nuclear, I am baffled. If you rely on another country’s energy, your policy is pretty much whatever that country wants. aka Russia. Also, the decline of the German economy shows that it’s not enough to live in the past and rely on previous successes. Times changed. What used to favor Germany is now exposing its weaknesses.
Chanel’s Unexpected CEO Is Reinventing the Company. “Nair grew up in Kolhapur, a small town in southwest India, where her mother fretted over whether anyone would marry an ambitious daughter determined to earn a degree in electronics and telecommunications. She was one of a small minority of women among the 3,000 students at her college. Ultimately realizing that human resources was her forte, she earned an M.B.A. before setting off on her career. Nair first came to Unilever as a summer intern and then became a management trainee in 1992. Soon she volunteered to work night shifts as a factory supervisor in India, eventually moving on to two other facilities. “[I] lived in a village for eight weeks without roads or electricity, because that was a way to know that consumer,” she remembers. “I really rolled up my sleeves and did all the roles that taught me about supply chain, that taught me about how businesses run the drivers of growth, how sales happen, how marketing happens.”
Google to begin selling maps data to companies building solar products, hopes to generate $100 million in first year. Google Maps can easily clear $1 billion in revenue a year for Google and it should have high margin. It’ll be interesting to see how the company monetizes this long-underutilized asset. Packaging it with Google Cloud for companies seems sensible to me as an approach.
Rates Are Up. We’re Just Starting to Feel the Heat. I didn’t fully grasp why Warren Buffett named interest rates as one of the most important factors in investing. I didn’t live through any economic turbulence in the US prior to the time we are now. Most of my years here saw a historically low interest rate. Now, I understand his thinking more.
Other stuff I find interesting
Intelligent vs Smart. “People who understand finance might be intelligent, but understanding how the world works requires smarts. I think my own dog – who is such a good girl – is crazy half the time, so I shutter when people can’t find any faults in their favorite politician or investing guru.“
Chromebooks Were Once a Good Deal for Schools. Now They’re Becoming E-Waste. One of Apple’s biggest competitive advantages is to combine hardware and software to create great personal computers. The likes of Dell, Google, Acer or HP are not able to do the same when they just own either hardware or software, not both. The decline of Chromebooks in the classroom is the proof of that and further evidence that Apple is likely going to succeed in the education space.
Why doctors pay millions in fees that could be spent on care. “Imagine if each time your wages were deposited in your bank account, your employer deducted a fee of 1.5% to 5% to provide the money electronically. That, increasingly, is what health insurers are imposing on doctors. Many insurers, after whittling down physicians’ reimbursements, now take an additional cut if the doctor prefers — as almost all do — to receive funds electronically rather than via a paper check.”. If there is a low-hanging fruit use case for FedNow, this is it
10 churches around the world given amazing new life. These churches are beautiful. My favorites are the ones in Belgium, Finland and Spain.
Carlos Alcaraz Is Bringing the Thrill Back to Tennis. His ascend to the top of the tennis world is remarkable, but if you watch his game, you’ll understand why. This guy moves fast, hits the ball hard (so hard that some of his peers admitted that his shot was the hardest on tour), knows how to place the ball well, serves reasonably well and slices the ball as well as anyone. In other words, a complete player. At the age of 20. Some fans refer to Tsitsipas, Berrettini, Zverev or Medvedev as the next generation of superstars in tennis, but they, combined, have won fewer Grand Slams than Carlitos. He is the future, if not the here and now already.
The Devastating Shot That Novak Djokovic Is Still Improving. I am surprised at the low percentage of winners from forehands, even for the greatest players in history. I didn’t expect 60-70%, but lower than 20% is just astonishing. Even more remarkable is the will to improve at an old age and after incredible success by Djokovic. Such an inspiration for everybody to continue to improve every day of their life.
Stats
There are 3.2 million creators and 239 million users on OnlyFans as of August 2023
Back-to-school spending per child is expected to drop to $597 this year from $661 in 2022
4.3% of the general workforce tests screened for marijuana in 2022 came back positive
Minh Quang Duong 
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