Business

How Years of Reddit Posts Have Made the Company an AI Darling. The AI arms race generates wind behind Reddit’s sails. But for how long? There are reports on diminishing returns on investments related to AI. How sustainable is this demand? Plus, how do users feel about their content being used to train models?

Here we go: The Verge now has a subscription. I disagree with a lot of takes from The Verge, but I have to say that this is a well-balanced position. I am not a ferocious The Verge reader, so I am not sure yet I will subscribe. But their approach makes it more likely for me to, than just putting the entire site behind paywall.

Netflix’s Extraordinary Parental Leave Was Part of Its Culture. That’s Over. People really shouldn’t expect a company’s culture to stay stagnant, no matter what. Leadership changes. Circumstances change. Hence, companies need to change to adapt. Netflix did the same. And I think their financials and stock price reflect whether it’s a success or not.

Trump Advisers Seek to Shrink or Eliminate Bank Regulators. Consumers in the banking world in the US are very protected. All thanks to the regulations in place. For sure, it imposes a lot of overhead on financial institutions trying to comply with the regulations. Unwinding these regulations is good for the banks, credit unions and so on, but at what expense?

Capital, Compute & AI Scaling. A thought-provoking podcast episode on AI and the Capex question by big tech firms

Other Stuff I Find Interesting

Inside the Four-Day Workweek Experiment. It requires more than just internal efforts to make this experiment work. If your clients don’t like having no access on that one extra day off, then it’s unlikely your management team will continue the experiment. In the US, the hustle culture (live to work) makes it even more challenge to trial this 4-day workweek concept.

A Digital Archive of the Art of the Sanborn Fire Maps

My Rule for Avoiding Lifestyle Creep: Don’t Live Beyond Your Assets. An easy formula to keep your expenses in check.

How We Got the Lithium-ion Battery. A brief (not really brief) overview of the history of Lithium-ion Battery.

A small business owner got candid about his experience hiring immigrant workers.

Why We Have a Housing Crisis. An excellent and informative read on the real estate market. There are more when we go deeper than just the supply-demand question

Stats

Retail returns in 2024 are expected to be around $890 billion

2024 has seen 57 new all-time-high days of S&P500 so far