Business
Apple announces chief operating officer transition. You don’t often see changes in Apple leadership, so this announcement is a big deal. Jeff Williams, in my opinion, is never a successor to Tim Cook because the two are at similar age. Hence, I don’t think he is leaving because he is upset over a lack of promotion. Apple is arguably the most covered company in the world. The lack of rumors and coverage before the announcement indicates that this is indeed driven by Jeff’s preference and own desire. Sabih is 59 years old. I doubt he has 10+ years in the COO seat, so we may get a similar transition in a few years. I have long thought that John Ternus, the hardware chief, is the primary candidate for the CEO job. But he is also 50. If Cook wants to give at least a decade to his successor, we likely will see him step down in 1-2 years. We are going to see a new leadership team at Apple soon.
UnitedHealth’s Campaign to Quiet Critics. When you have to resort to legal threats to silence that many people who dare to speak out against you, perhaps the problem is with you, but not with them. Interrupting a surgeon in the middle of a surgery is unfathomably unacceptable.
Citizens spies opportunity after Chase move. The reliance on a specific airline/hotel brand or an issuer portal to get the most out of premium benefits will create a market where consumers want a simple product that rewards them directly and gives them the flexibility that they need. Still, the biggest issuers have the means to offer rich bonus offers and advertise their products nationally. Regional players like Citizens have to be careful about where to spend their precious dollars. Cross-selling to existing customers is a great strategy, but it requires a strong leadership from the top and collaboration between multiple departments.
The Pants Cost $20. They Explain $86 Billion of Costco Sales. Private labels offer Costco several benefits: higher margin, brand loyalty and more bargaining power. It’s a vicious cycle for other brands that is really hard to break at Costco’s scale.
Meta’s grand WhatsApp fintech experiment in India has fizzled. “Even after the cap was lifted, WhatsApp didn’t do anything fundamentally different — no big product revamp, no cash-back play, no merchant push, no marketing blitz. It’s like they have lost interest. Brand perception is another barrier. Unlike established fintech brands, “users may be hesitant to trust [WhatsApp] with financial transactions due to its primary association with messaging”
Why Dick’s Foot Locker acquisition is a big bet on Nike. “The reason all of this is so important to Foot Locker is that Nike still accounts for almost 60% of Foot Locker’s sales. And that’s a significant decline from five years ago, when that number was sitting at 75%. The appeal of Foot Locker in the first place is that it caters to a different shopper than Dick’s. The Dick’s customer is a more suburban, team sports-focused shopper, while Foot Locker attracts a more urban, sneakerhead consumer that wears activewear for lifestyle purposes. A basketball shoe at Dick’s is sold to play basketball in; a basketball shoe at Foot Locker doesn’t often see a court. Combining the two companies also gives them both more power to negotiate with key suppliers like Nike and Adidas — and it gives Dick’s access to an international business.”
Other Stuff I Find Interesting
Not So Fast: AI Coding Tools Can Actually Reduce Productivity. The effect of AI on productivity is polarizing at the moment with different competing studies on this very topic. Take this with a grain of salt. But do take it as another part of the conversation.
Everyone Has a Process. A long yet very interesting post on process in investing, but I think you can apply it to every other work. It’s important to be conscious of our own process, be honest about its strengths and weaknesses and be willing to keep making such process better.
Dangerous mines: A death at the bottom of the EV supply chain. “Many residents in mining areas in Zimbabwe say the relationship with China is one of exploitation. The lithium boom has created little benefit for their communities, they argue, and in many ways has harmed them. Residents say they’ve been displaced from their homes by expanding operations at Chinese-run mines with little or no compensation. They say farmland has been degraded and water supplies contaminated. Some residents have complained that well-paying jobs in the mines are often filled by workers imported from China or Zimbabwe’s cities, while unions have criticized conditions and pay. Security crackdowns at the mines have resulted in arrests of illicit miners.“
Kennedy’s Battle Against Food Dyes Hits a Roadblock: M&M’s. As much as I loathe his stance on vaccines, I actually support RFK on this issue. Candies and processed foods are unhealthy to begin with. So having synthetic dyes makes them even worse and right now almost 20% of processed foods contain such coloring agents. This is the one area where I really want the Trump administration to stand firm and leverage its executive power.
How Norway Is Proving That Homelessness Is a Solvable Problem. Transparent communication, collaboration between the state, municipalities and the private sector, and the strategic decision to provide housing for the homeless contribute to Norway’s success in cutting the homelessness rate in half.
Stats
The average U.S. sports family spent $1,016 on its child’s primary sport in 2024
20% of GenZ and Millennials shop at Aldi
Minh Quang Duong 
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