What I Wrote Last Week
Book Review – Same As Ever & Die With Zero
Business
Target’s self-checkout policy not about reducing theft. Retailers are now conducting tests to see if they can eliminate self-checkout to reduce theft. Remember not long ago they tried to lower costs with self-checkouts? There is a fine balance between self-checkouts that lower waiting time for customers as well as human expenses and unintended problems such as theft. Looks like the sentiment check is swinging towards curbing shotlifting.
Car Dealership Guy – Under the Hood of the US Car Market. You’ll learn a thing or two about the US Car Market from this interview with the person behind the anonymous Twitter account Car Dealership Guy
The Biggest Delivery Business in the U.S. Is No Longer UPS or FedEx. I am really impressed by what the article described as a nonchalant reaction by Amazon staff to the milestone. It goes to show that they knew this would happen and that this milesone is just one part of the brutal business they are in. More deliveries mean little if the volume growth came at the expense of profitability. Fortunately for Amazon, recent business results indicate that they are not squandering profits. When a major retailer in the US handles millions of packages every month and accustoms consumers to fast deliveries, it is very hard for other retailers to compete. Not without investing billions in fulfillment and delivery networks.
Disney CEO Bob Iger tells employees he wants to start building again during town hall. Investing in theme parks, building ESPN streaming business and revamping the studio all seem like great strategic choices. There is just one problem. Bob Iger is not supposed to stick around for long. His mandate is to find a long-term CEO that can revive Disney. These initiatives can’t happen overnight. Either he will stay around long enough to see some make progress or he will find a new CEO by 2025 like he promised to. What if the new CEO didn’t share his vision? What if the new CEO had his or her own ideas? Remember what happened between Bob Chapek and Bob Iger.
Inside Foxconn’s struggle to make iPhones in India. There are social, cultural and political challenges that make it difficult for Foxconn and Apple to replicate their incredible success in India. I am not saying that these challenes are easy to overcome, but the piece from Rest of World does indicate that there is progress and given enough time, there will be significant success. Let’s see how it is after 3 years.
Why It’s So Hard to Copy Charlie Munger’s Secret Sauce. First of all, it was terrible news that Charlie Munger passed away. He is one of my heroes and I learned so much from listening to him speak and reading about him. I attended Berkshire Hathaway Annual Shareholder Meeting a few times and I am glad that my wife went to his last ever meeting this year. It’s a great loss to the world. Back to the article, I think one reason why Charlie’s approach becomes more difficult than ever is because we have more information than ever before. Everybody has access to the same information and mostly at the same time. There is no advantage any more. Then, there is a lot more speculation. When stocks suddenly rise to an unsustainable level, investors start to question their own approach and make decisions that go against the Charlie Munger philosphy. On the same token, when we have platforms like Twitter, where thousands of users post about stocks every day, it can be tempting to invest in stocks that we know little about.
Other Stuff I Find Interesting
The Road to Self-Renewal. “Meaning is not something you stumble across, like the answer to a riddle or the prize in a treasure hunt. Meaning is something you build into your life. You build it out of your own past, out of your affections and loyalties, out of the experience of humankind as it is passed on to you, out of your own talent and understanding, out of the things you believe in, out of the things and people you love, out of the values for which you are willing to sacrifice something. The ingredients are there. You are the only one who can put them together into that unique pattern that will be your life. Let it be a life that has dignity and meaning for you. If it does, then the particular balance of success or failure is of less account.”
Instagram’s Algorithm Delivers Toxic Video Mix to Adults Who Follow Children. It’s possible that the tests conducted by WSJ were too biased, but even internal communications at Meta showed that they knew about this problem. They just prioritized the even larger one that is to grow Reels as fast as possible. Curbing the recommendation algorithm that yielded great results is not going to stimulate growth.
Vietnam Relied on Environmentalists to Secure Billions. Then It Jailed Them. A troubling account of how environmentalists are arrested in my country.
Airbnb Is Conquering Italy. One City Is Fighting Back. I understand why city governments are putting bans on AirBnb listings. The problem is that such a tactic can infringe on people’s freedom to make choices regarding their own properties. I am not sure I support that nor do I think the justice system in Italy will agree with it. I do think Italian courts may be more lenient towards making much more difficult and expensive for people to list their place on AirBnb. Such a deterrent may work. Nonetheless, I wonder if this trend will drive people away from city centers and to suburb. The challenge here is that I don’t think such an American concept is popular in Europe.
‘How Did I End Up in Indiana?’ Welcome to the Internet’s Favorite Small City. Believe it or not, Carmel is on my list of potential cities to relocate to when our time in Omaha concludes. On one hand, it validates somewhat my research. On the other hand, more people will know about this place and move there, after the publishing of this article, making the city more crowded and expensive.
Stats
U.S. retail sales on Black Friday rose 2.5% year-over-year excluding automotive sales
Walking more than five flights of stairs a day can cut risk of heart disease by 20%
Minh Quang Duong 
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