Business
The Anti-Amazon. This article does a great explaining some of the important differences between Amazon and Costco. However, precisely because of these differences, it is hard to envision Costco becoming and toppling Amazon at its own game. When you purposefully curate SKUs to make sure you have the lowest price on such items, the selection has to be small enough to be manageable. If that’s the case, how could you compete with the everyday online store?
China Is Devastating the Last Stronghold of German Industry. Midsize German manufacturers, once known for quality industrial output, are now under immense pressure from Chinese rivals, to the point that many have to layoff workers and move operations overseas to cut costs. It’s a vicious cycle. Once you start to get creative in operations, quality tends to be compromised and if it’s your last remaining unique selling point, well, it’s a huge problem.
Big Tech Has Suddenly Flipped on the AI Jobs Wipeout Scenario. A legendary man from where I reside (Omaha, NE) once wisely said that incentives drive behavior. The CEOs that are most loud about AI replacing people knew what they were doing. Even if they dialed back their tone, it would be because they had a financial incentive, not because they changed their mind on AI. Among the CEOs that had to walk back their comments and actions, Ford CEO is the worst. And it’s baffling to me how CEOs have a wider berth to make mistakes than others.
Netflix, Disney and YouTube interested in FIFA World Cup U.S. rights; package could reach $2 billion. You have to wonder that how whoever wins the bid and pays that much or even more will make money on the other side. Raise the subscription fee and see high churn rates afterwards? How much higher would be enough to overcome such a monstrous upfront cost? How about pricing ads at a higher price? How much higher would be enough before brands tap out? Soccer is not necessarily like American football. It doesn’t have breaks, except the one between the two halves. The water breaks we have seen so far in THIS World Cup are new and exclusive here. I don’t think we will see those breaks in 2030 and 2034 editions. I don’t think Apple will pitch for this.
U.S. Bank pursues Gen Z with payments-first strategy. Deposits are expensive to get, but hugely important to lenders. More and more financial institutions gate credit card rwards with a banking relationship. They are willing to throw credit card rewards at customers if that means they can generate more low-cost deposits. That’s exactly what US Bank is trying to do here. The bank doesn’t want to come across as targeting Gen Z, but if you build a product already, why not making it appealing to the one cohort that is responsible for consumer consumption in the future?
Why Are Berries Everywhere, in Every Season? Driscoll’s. “Most of that growth has been driven by Driscoll’s, a $7 billion California company that began as a multifamily farm in 1904, patented its first strain of strawberries in 1958 and is still controlled by family members. In 1989, its board made what the company calls the Meadowood Declaration, a resolution that seemed preposterous at the time: to make all four berries available, in every season, in every part of the world. Today the company is the undisputed global market leader, shipping four billion containers of highly perishable fruit across 60 countries each year. (The company developed its signature hinged, ventilated plastic clamshell in the 1990s.) According to Circana, a market research firm, Driscoll’s is now the second-highest-earning brand in American supermarkets, behind only Coca-Cola. To that end, Driscoll’s today is less a farming business than a research and marketing enterprise, harvesting berry-related data instead of berries. Instead of owning land, the company owns the genetic material of its berries and the knowledge of how best to plant, pick and transport them. It subcontracts with farmers around the world to grow those breeds according to its specifications, then handles sales and distribution after harvest.”
Other Stuff I Find Interesting And So May You
Why Is It So Hard to Fly Across Africa? I was surprised to learn that Africa makes up only 2% of the global air traffic.
The High Cost of New York’s Rent Freeze. A rent freeze is music to the ears of renters. Who doesn’t love some monthly savings? The problem is that eventually landlords will not be able to bear the increasing costs of maintenance anymore. They will declare bankrupt and cost the city and the public money in bailout and lost tax revenue. Or landlords will convert available-for-rent units into something else. At that point, supply will fall and the market will fall into a vicious cycle.
Why is it so unusually expensive to replace lead pipes in Chicago? Lead has been scientifically proven to be harmful to human health. With the largest inventory of lead pipes in the country, Chicago must expedite efforts to replace these pipes to protect its citizens’ health. The high cost is driven by local laws which can be changed. If the estimated cost is higher than what it really is, so what? Just get it done and prevent harm on people’s health.
This super-cooled squirrel could revolutionise emergency care. “As the ground above her freezes solid, reaching temperatures of -20C (-4F), her body temperature plummets. Astonishingly, her brain cools to 0C (32F), her abdomen to -2C (28F) and her hind limbs even down to -2.9C (27F) – colder than any other mammal has been recorded alive. For eight months she lies here without food or water, rousing only occasionally, until the ground warms and she returns to life aboveground. These extreme features have made Arctic ground squirrels, alongside some close relatives, a popular study subject for scientists striving to better understand what makes hibernation biologically possible – not just out of scientific curiosity, but also in the hopes of someday applying this to humans.” Mother Nature is so incredible in her design of each of her children. Who could design the Arctic squirrels in such a way that allows them to hibernate for months on end safely and without losing muscles? We, as humans, are trying to glean what we can about Article squirrel, so that one day, maybe, we can use science to make lives better.
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Minh Quang Duong 
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