What I wrote last week
Life is good for Uber. Not so much for PayPal
Business
ALDI Strikes a Balance Between Price and Planet. An interesting list of what Aldi has done to lower the impact on the environment while staying competitive.
Companies — profitable or not — make 2024 the year of cost cuts. One thing I did learn in the past few years following the stock market is that investor confidence ebbs and flows, and such a change influences what many, not all, companies do. At one point, growth was all the rage. At another, profitability is the name of the game. Now, efficiency and AI are the themes. I can’t say for sure, but AI may be the enabler in numerous recent layoffs. What’s more likely is that some CEOs looked at what transpired and thought: well, I need to make up the numbers for this year too and if others can achieve the same productivity with fewer heads, why can’t I?
The Boom in Battery Metals for EVs Is Turning to Bust. “Producers of lithium and nickel, which are used in lithium-ion batteries for EVs, have been stalling projects and closing mines to save cash after a painfully quick fall in commodity prices. Prices of lithium are down as much as 90% since the start of last year, while the price of nickel has roughly halved. EV adoption is happening, just not as fast as anticipated, and sharply lower metal prices could help automotive companies reignite sales growth by luring buyers with cheaper models and discounts. The mining slowdown risks shortages of the metals if demand quickly heats up, once again leaving carmakers scrambling for supplies.”
Meta Staff Found Instagram Tool Enabled Child Exploitation. The Company Pressed Ahead Anyway. It’s one thing to launch an initiative that is potentially lucrative yet within the acceptable risk parameters. I think no company can do business without risks. It’s another when a company fully understands the risks, comes across specific instances yet still presses ahead regardless. Facebook may be both, but its track record may make people lean more towards the latter case. For good measure, this is a $1 trillion dollar company essentially controlled by one man who owns so much voting power that the Board is practically powerless against him. Such lack of governance is not doing Facebook any favor here. The only check against such great power here can only come from authority. I hope the FTC and Congress will take this matter seriously.
United Airlines raises checked bag fee $5, following American. Raising bag fee can make airlines money in three ways. The first source of additional revenue is from the fee itself. Second, airlines will motivate passengers to get their branded credit cards to avoid fees on the 1st checked bags. Card issuers usually have to pay airlines for a finder’s fee on every new account. Additionally, airlines can get more business from cardholders who want to put their cards to good use or from card issuers that may compensate airlines for card usage.
Other stuff I find interesting
The Ramen Lord. An extraordinary story on an obsessed chef who devotes his life to making the perfect ramen and serving it to hundreds or even thousands of customers.
Half of College Grads Are Working Jobs That Don’t Use Their Degrees. The competition for good-paying jobs only gets harder every year. When I was in college, I noticed that a lot of students were too relaxed to take studying seriously. They may end up with a good college degree, but at most, a degree is just table stakes. You need a lot more to compete and land a good job, especially one that you like and one that leverages your degree. I am talking about widening professional networks, work samples (design portfolio, stock portfolio, blog, etc…) and any other unorthodox activities that can make a candidate stand out. If you don’t stand out from the crowd, sooner or later, the urge to work and put food on the table will steer you into a direction different from what your college degree is supposed to.
Finnair sparks controversy by weighing its passengers. The idea of weighing passengers to support balance calculations makes sense to me. I mean they could have done it discreetly, but chose to be public about it. I don’t think there is anything wrong with that. With that being said, what would they do with this information? Assigning seats based on passenger weight can be considered discrimination and trigger legal trouble.
Stats
Apple Captures Top 7 Spots in Global List of Top 10 Best-selling Smartphones
Minh Quang Duong 
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