Business
Fifteen years later, the Apple Cards origin story. Another lovely story about Apple doing things differently and emphasizing the humanity element. It is precisely this culture that is one of its strongest, most enduring and most difficult-to-imitate competitive advantages.
Apple’s New CEO Seeks to Make Company Run Faster and Leaner. Given the smooth transition that took place, it’s impossible that Ternus just came up with this plan without buy-in from the Board and Tim Cook. They must have thought about this for a while. Ternus already advocated for streamlining the hardware team in the past. This is just proof that he is doing what he believed in and the new CEO continues to do what Steve Jobs once said: don’t ask what I’d do. Just do the right thing. On a side note, I’d appreciate Mark Gurman more if he just stuck to being a journalist and reporting just what he heard without involving his biased and often WRONG opinions. He said Services weakened. Well, growth slowed because of the law of big numbers. Services was no longer just another stream of revenue for Apple. It’s even bigger than a lot of S&P500 companies. It’s unreasonable to expect the same growth when the base is small. And as a journalist who has very high opinion of himself, he can’t say he just made a mistake in his choice of verb there.
Delta Is the Only Big Four Airline That Won’t Use Starlink—and Elon Musk Is Furious. Delta’s choice to go with Amazon Leo for in-flight Wifi is interesting. Starlink is an established and proven service with scale advantage. For a global airline such as Delta, having connection to as many satellites as possible would be beneficial. Instead, they chose to go with an alternative that only goes into BETA in 2028. The backlash is real and Delta’s competitors are quick to jump on the chance to inflict more damage by offering status match to Delta loyalists. Consumers are not blindly loyal. They will go with a service that offers the most bang for their bucks. Delta justified its high prices in the past with the best flying experience. That advantage is no longer there. I flew with United equipped with Starlink. I can’t look at aircrafts without Starlink the same anymore. Say what you will about Musk, but his Starlink is phenomenal. I’d not be surprised if Delta had a change of mind by 2027.
How America’s Biggest Buffet Chain Cracked the Math of All You Can Eat. “To succeed as a business, all-you-can-eat depends on high traffic, particularly in locations with expensive rents, Trenary said. Losing 500 diners a week can spell trouble. Golden Corral lets its franchisees know where they rank in the overall system as to traffic and cost as a percentage of sales to keep them on track with their economics. Golden Corral never hides higher-price items, Trenary said, but it does organize its buffets around meal “modules” that combine more expensive and affordable dishes. Buffet lines pair high-cost shrimp with more affordable hush puppies and french fries, or meatloaf with potatoes, gravy and green beans. Quality is key to reducing waste and repeated trips, Trenary said, so operators use demand data to know how much food to prepare down to 15-minute increments. The company eschews cooking ahead or food warmers, as that would degrade its quality and lead people to load up on other options. Operators also make around 80% of the items on the buffet in house. “
Other Stuff I Find Interesting And So May You
From Holy Water to Frozen Meals: The Evolution of Vending Machines. I did not know the first automated dispensing machine was invented centuries ago by a Greek.
The Five Things Worth Paying For. I used to be very frugal with my money and keep the living cost as low as possible. If I could inconvenience myself a bit to save a few bucks, I would. However, as I get older, I understand better how to use money to enrich my life. If I have to pay for a lounge so my wife and kid can rest on a trip, I will. If I must pay a couple of hundred of bucks more for a direct flight that will save us time, so be it. If a delivery by Instacart costs me a few more dollars in tips but I won’t have to spend an hour going to a grocery store, I’ll be happy to pay. Time, Convenience, Calm, Delight and Comfort, these are the five things worth paying for.
When You Can’t Do One Thing, Do Something Else. The law of relativity. If you put the most daunting task first, others that are still daunting look more appealing. When stuck at a task, just do something else. In my experience, this strategy helps my productivity a lot. Not only do I feel the momentum of actually getting things done, but I sometimes can learn something from doing other tasks that I then apply to the one that I am stuck at.
Who Is Really Rich in America? (Hint: Main Street Millionaires). The biggest lesson here is that to get really rich, most of us need time.
Rival Nations Are Copying Japan’s Perfect $64 Grapes. “The country’s devotion to high-end fruit is as much a factor of nature as it is of deliberate policy. Japan’s hot, humid climate and frequent natural disasters make growing food difficult; its mountainous terrain and dense population keep farm plots small and scattered, and greenhouses are commonly used. Unable to grow produce at scale, Japanese farmers instead turned to a model that keeps profit margins high: producing fewer fruits and charging more. Every step is tightly orchestrated by the powerful Japan Agricultural Cooperatives, or the JA, which operates as both a distribution manager and a powerful political lobby. The drive for perfection requires huge amounts of costly labor. Coloration is kept consistent by manually trimming leaves that might cast shadows on an apple or a mango, and fruits are rotated by hand. Special machines are used to measure the sweetness of grapes or the thickness of citrus rinds. Individual fruits such as peaches and apples are often wrapped in paper while still on the trees to protect them from pests and weather. For the most high-end of muskmelons, Japanese farmers grow only one per plant so all the nutrients and attention are channeled into the single fruit. Japan’s agriculture ministry estimates that overseas leakage costs around ¥20 billion a year in lost licensing fees for Shine Muscat grapes alone. Cumulative losses from South Korean-grown Japanese strawberry varieties totaled ¥22 billion as of 2020, the most recent year for which data was available. While the ministry has no comprehensive figure across all agricultural products, the overall toll — including missed market opportunities as well as royalties — is believed to be far higher.“
Stats
One-third of restaurants were unprofitable in the first half of 2026
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