What I wrote last week
Why Capital One Wants To Buy Discover
Business
I Read All 59 of Warren Buffett’s Annual Letters. These Are the Best Parts. You learn as much from these letters as you’d from a normal business degree. “Charlie and I have no magic plan to add earnings except to dream big and to be prepared mentally and financially to act fast when opportunities present themselves. Every decade or so, dark clouds will fill the economic skies, and they will briefly rain gold. When downpours of that sort occur, it’s imperative that we rush outdoors carrying washtubs, not teaspoons.”
World’s Biggest Music Company Deploys the ‘Nuclear Option’ Against TikTok. An interesting piece on the showdown between Universal and TikTok. The label wants to be compensated for its music given how much TikTok has benefited from songs produced by Universal. That is fair. But they couldn’t come to a deal and such failure resulted in Universal pulling songs off TikTok. Universal’s best chance is to convince artists to team with them and put pressure on the social media network. If artists show support by taking the short-term pain in hope to gain sustainable long-term benefits, Universal’s bargaining power will grow.
Google CEO Calls Biased AI Chatbot Responses Unacceptable. Pichai supporters will point to the growth in earnings and stock prices as proof that Google benefits from his leadership. Undoubtedly, Google’s stock and bottom lines increased under Pichai’s helm. However, everything is relative and must have a yardstick to be judged fairly against. If you compare Google with the other big tech firms, the picture will look different. Google looks to be less managed than the other companies, as shown by the hiring & firing that came out of the pandemic, the botched product releases and the failure to establish Google as the leader in AI. At some point, the Board must wonder if Sundar is the right man for the job. If I am a betting man, I’ll say he is not.
Other stuff I find interesting
When High-Yield Savings Accounts Come With an Asterisk. When rates remain competitive, consumers look to savings accounts for additional earnings to combat inflation. As demand stays elevated, some companies engage in dishonest marketing at best and truthlly deceit. The federal and local authority should hold such companies to account and penalize them if necessary.
How Portugal eased its opioid epidemic, while U.S. drug deaths skyrocketed. “What’s different in Portugal? In the late 1990s, the country faced an explosion of heroin use. The drug was causing roughly 350 overdose deaths a year and sparked a wave of HIV/AIDS and other diseases linked to dirty needles. Portugal’s leaders responded by pivoting away from the U.S. drug war model, which prioritized narcotics seizures, arrests and lengthy prison sentences for drug offenders. Instead, Portugal focused scarce public dollars on health care, drug treatment, job training and housing. The system, integrated into the country’s taxpayer-funded national health care system, is free and relatively easy to navigate. Cops still work aggressively to break up major drug gangs and arrest people committing drug-related crimes like theft. They also disrupt open-air drug markets like the ones that have emerged in some U.S. cities. But when street cops in Portugal encounter people using small, personal-use amounts of drugs, there’s no arrest. Instead, police schedule meetings for drug users with teams of counselors.”
How to Generate Good Ideas. Walking, literally and figuratively.
You Are Not Late. The old adage: the best time to start is yesterday, the second best time is today. Kevin Kelly is arguing that the Internet is just getting started and there are a lot of opportunities waiting ahead.
The U.S. Economy Is Surpassing Expectations. Immigration Is One Reason. As a country, we need to be vigilant about whom we let in. In other words, border security is important. But on the other hand, we have to face the fact that immigration is vital to the economy and immigrants do contribute. We must be rationale and not resort to the extreme that we close the door on everybody or make it exceedingly difficult for overseas labor or talent to come here and work. As an immigrant, I can tell you from first-hand experience that it’s difficult to get a US visa and to maintain one. If you do some research, you’ll see that background check and vetting for refugees by the US is among the most stringent in the world. The question is: are we driven by fear or are we relying on common sense to find the best policy for the country?
Stats
The total EV market share in the US grew to 7.6% in 2023
Alcohol-related deaths averaged 500 a day in 2021, according to CDC
Minh Quang Duong 
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