Business
The Publicity War Between AT&T and T-Mobile Is Getting Ugly. The carriers spare no controversial tactics to gain subscribers from one another. The campaign by T-Mobile to ask AT&T customers to share log-in credentials is incredible. There is pushing to the limit and there is PUSHING LIKE T-MOBILE. Given how cut-throat the competition is, I don’t think we will see another participant soon.
Doug Parker Gives An Airline Pricing Masterclass — And Accidentally Exposes How American Went Wrong On His Watch. An interesting post on airline economics, revenue management in the airline industry and what American Airlines did wrong.
Forget the $1.50 Hot Dogs. Have You Tried a Costco Vacation? Costco knows that travel agency is NOT its business, but a nice value-add to its members. It invests in being able to negotiate the best deals on behalf of customers and makes sure the experience is as nice as returning stuff to its stores. The result? Costco Vacation strengthens the flywheel.
Why Walmart is one of the last major retailers not accepting Apple Pay. Data, cost, scale and necessity. Walmart introduced its own mobile wallet and could keep all user data within the company. Such data is valuable in constructing user profile and tailor offers. Walmart has a lot of stores and each has multiple places where shoppers can pay. Upgrading the entire fleet is not cheap. Plus, Walmart sales have been growing just fine. At its scale, it can afford to neglect the most popular contactless payment method and still operate well.
Oracle’s $300 Billion AI Bet Has Fast Become a Bubble Barometer. “To provide this processing power, Oracle will have to build about five data center complexes, each of which will be among the largest in the world. All told, they’ll require millions of chips and consume 4.5 gigawatts of power—more than all the homes in Chicago. Oracle is also helping develop data center capacity for OpenAI in the United Arab Emirates. Despite its limited experience building physical infrastructure, Oracle is aiming to get the sites online years ahead of a typical industry schedule. Some of these plans are already missing their targets: According to people close to the work, the initial 2027 completion date for some of the US data centers has slipped to 2028, largely because of labor and material shortages. Should OpenAI’s revenue stop doubling or tripling every year, the startup might not have either the need for so much computing power or the means to pay for it—and Oracle could end up sitting on some extraordinarily expensive and illiquid assets. The Stargate deal is structured so that OpenAI will have a chance to recommit or walk away after about five years. That’s around a decade before many of Oracle’s leases are up. Today it’s a seller’s market for AI infrastructure. No one knows whether that will still be true by the time OpenAI has a chance to reconsider.”
Other Stuff I Find Interesting
How F1 drivers avoid jet lag: Casino lights, sleep coaching and making beds ‘sacred’. It’s not new that Formula 1 drivers have to adjust to different time zones quickly and sleep is very important to their performance on track. What is interesting is some of the stuff that they have to do to accomplish that goal. Walking around the Strip and exposing themselves to specific lights are quite something.
Speed matters: Why working quickly is more important than it seems. The author made good points and used great examples. In my experience, the faster you are, the more reliable and the more work you get to do. The more work you get to do, the more you learn and the faster you become. It’s a cycle and once you are in it, it’s very hard for anyone to break it.
Capital One’s Indian Mafia Exposed: Massive H-1B Kickback Scheme Displaces American Workers. I’d be shocked if Capital One’s HR would not take this seriously and if local and federal governments would open an inquiry. I am all for hiring people on merits regardless of background. As an immigrant, I support immigrants, but this scheme is the opposite of what the American Dream is about and does serious harm on the reputation of millions of immigrants.
With Apple’s help, storytellers are figuring out Vision Pro. I believe that Vision Pro is a long-term play for Apple that will ultimately be a commercial success. Such success would require care, investments and patience. There is no guarantee, but Apple has the track record for me to say that if there were one company to make Vision Pro a success, it’d be Apple.
Stats
“U.S. Costco members booked more than $100 million in travel in the five days after Thanksgiving”
Minh Quang Duong 
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