Business

Corporate America Launches Unorthodox Campaign to Gain Trump’s Attention. One of the biggest aspects of a CEO job is to deal with the incumbent administration. It’s hard enough to adapt to changes in policies every four years. It’s even harder when you have to deal with someone like Trump, for whom there is basically no script.

Googling Is for Old People. That’s a Problem for Google. I do find myself using AI-generated summaries more and more, and not scrolling down past the 5th link. However, I still do not trust AI content much. So the alleged demise of the web seems overblown. What is true, though, is that Google is under more pressure than ever. The core business is under threat by AI, but while it can use AI summaries to regain traffic, there is no concrete business model yet built around this approach. YouTube is almost unusable with ads every 30s. The silver lining is that Google can use this kind of articles in its legal proceedings.

Construction Industry Braces for One-Two Punch: Tariffs and Deportations. The immigration issue is not clear-cut. It’s not like you can just find undocumented immigrants and deport them all. Technically, they should be deported, but their departures may have real consequences on businesses and other people’s lives. Factoring that in, should we give them a chance to earn legal status? The Democrats go to one extreme as they want leniency and allow many people to come in, angering a lot of locals. Crimes from a few individuals stoke fear and exacerbate the issue. Republicans want no undocumented immigrants. But there is not enough discussion over what the ramifications for business, like the ones discussed in the article, are.

He Was Going to Save Intel. He Destroyed $150 Billion of Value Instead. Intel is likely one of those “too big to fix” problems.

Americans’ Cars Keep Getting Older—and Creakier. “Less good: Pinched by inflation, higher interest rates and supply-chain woes, Americans just haven’t been buying as many new vehicles lately. The four-year rolling average of annualized sales is about 15.5 million, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis. On the eve of the Covid-19 pandemic it was 17.7 million. Yet despite so many cars in the right age range, there are some surprising signs that Americans are choosing cheaper options or even deferring purchases of the goods and services that keep them running.“

Capital One report finds data disconnect between IT, business leaders. It is a leader’s job to be ambitious, to set a vision, to dream so that others can follow. However, in this particular case, I do think that a lot of leaders need to be realistic about AI capabilities and the current challenges.

Other Stuff I Find Interesting

The Debanking of America. It is an interesting phenomenon. I understand that some people are frustrated that they are punished for expressing views. Here is the thing: banks only do what is best for them and their shareholders. In this world, if you are related to a terrorist organization or if you participated in a riot like Jan 6th, you pose a risk to a bank’s reputation and they are incentivized to lower their risk profile. There is nothing to suggest that any bank debanking a customer is unlawful. If the government wants to make it illegal, they have the tools to do it.

Small-scale investors are building Vietnam’s EV charging network. It is a peculiar situation. As far as I know, in Vietnam, we don’t produce a massive amount of cheap electricity like countries with nuclear plants do. Hence, let’s say, even if the government subsidizes the EV industry and these investors, to what end? What are the consequences when EVs take up a lot of electricity and drive up the price of…everything else?

How One of the World’s Richest Men Is Avoiding $8 Billion in Taxes. You couldn’t do anything of this with flat-rate taxes and no loopholes. The problem with flat-rate taxes is that there is no room to incentivize anything. The US tax code allows the government to incentivize certain consumer and corporate behavior. The downside is that rich people can exploit the hell out of it to avoid millions, if not billions, in taxes.

Consumer Reports Unveils New Auto Brand Performance Data, Tools to Help Shoppers Make a Smart Vehicle Choice. Although electric vehicles and plug-in hybrid vehicles improved in terms of reliability, they still have higher problem rates than gas and hybrid vehicles. Hybrids have the best year ever in 2023.

Stats

Shopify merchants generated $11.5 billion in sales during Black Friday and Cyber Monday weekend, up 24% YoY

7.3% of home-building materials are imported, according to the National Association of Home Builders

Vietnam is forecast to have 1 million EVs by 2028