Tag: COVID-19

Weekly readings

Weekly reading – 23rd April 2022

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Business

The Pandemic Was Supposed to Push All Shopping Online. It Didn’t. A great business should pass a macroeconomic test, even one as challenging as the pandemic, without losing its competitive advantages. Take Apple for example. The pandemic gave the company a boost as consumers were more interested in Macs and iPads. But the stay-at-home restrictions also limited traffic to its stores and affected adversely how employees interacted. Nonetheless, Apple’s business grew from strength to strength in the past two years. On the other hand, firms with unclear competitive advantages may have received a boost from Covid-19 but came back down to Earth when things gradually returned to normal. We see that trend in Zoom, Peloton or companies mentioned in the article. Businesses shouldn’t think about it as online vs offline. It’s about how to stay agile to the unexpected challenges and deliver values to customers no matter what.

Amazon’s 2021 shareholder letter. If you think Andy’s writing style is different from Jeff’s, well, it’s because they are two different people and it’s not a surprise. Andy’s primary message in the letter is that Amazon remains a Day 1 company that stays Day 1 by investing in the future and being willing to experiment, fail and iterate. I love the Minimum Lovable Product instead of Minimum Viable Product.

Quartz Drops Its Website Paywall in an Unorthodox About-Face. Quartz specifically said that the decision to go paywall-free results from the analysis of internal data. They found out that readers were more engaged if they could access the content through newsletters and appreciate the value that the publisher brought. They could be wrong about this, but there is nothing wrong with making an informed decision

Charlie Rose’s interview with Warren Buffett. There are always nuggets of wisdom whenever Warren speaks. There are two I specifically love from the interview: 1/ whenever he makes an investment, it’s about the business, not the stock. 2/ Even though Rockefeller was immeasurably richer than most people on this planet, we have a much higher quality of life than he ever did. Would you trade that off?

Kroger Is Building a Grocery Ecosystem for the Future

China’s Covid-19 Restrictions Threaten Economic Recovery. If China continues their insane and stubborn Zero Covid policy, does that mean a recession for the US economy is on the horizon?

An interesting write-up on Divvy

EU approves groundbreaking rules to police Big Tech platforms. It’s great to ban targeted ads on minors or manipulative practice to increase engagement. It’s also really important to police content and fight disinformation. However, a million dollar question remains: how? The devil is in the details. Which information should be policed and removed? Would over-reaction from platforms curb the freedom and diversity on the Internet?

Other stuff I find interesting

Tokyo’s Manuscript Writing Cafe only allows writers on a deadline, and won’t let them leave until finished

TurboTax’s Fight Against Free Tax Filing. Because I was in Vietnam for two months up till the deadline to file tax returns, I had no choice but to use TurboTax to fulfill my obligation. I ended up paying $134 for the service. It’s just plainly ridiculous that some private companies can successfully do this to thousands of consumers and the US government hasn’t been able to do anything about it

Web scraping is legal

Inside the fierce, messy fight over “healthy” sugar tech. A fascinating story of a talented and ambitious Chinese American making great discoveries on sugar tech and getting arrested for defrauding the US government

Stats

Food-at-home CPI jumps 10% year over year in March

According to Bank of America, Zelle transaction volume reached $65 billion in Q1 FY2022

Grocery store sales up over 9% for March

According to PYMNTS.com, Fifteen percent ($91 billion) of all the money U.S. consumers spent on clothing and accessories went to Amazon in 2021

U.S. retail sales of dog and cat treats were expected to reach $9.87 billion by the end of 2021

life

Omicron – The new mutation said to be much more transmissible than the Delta variant

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Some very bad news happened today. There is a new Covid-19 variant called Omicron (B.1.1.529) that is said to be highly contagious. Cases were already identified in several countries in Africa, Hong Kong, Israel and Belgium. Several governments, including the U.S government, already imposed travel restrictions to and from some of these countries. The stock market had the worst day in 2021 today. If this new mutation is as contagious as the early data suggests, we’re in for another rough ride…

I came across this blog post by Dr Katelyn Jetelina, an epidemiologist and I thought it would be helpful for anyone that wants to learn about this:

B.1.1.529 was first discovered in Botswana on November 11. It was then quickly identified in South Africa three days later and identified in two cases in Hong Kong. This morning Israel and Belgium announced that they have cases. The Belgium case was a young, unvaccinated woman who developed flu-like symptoms 11 days after travelling to Egypt via Turkey. She had no links to South Africa. This means that the virus is already circulating in communities. As of yesterday, 100 cases have been identified across the globe (mostly in South Africa). As I write this, no cases have been identified in the United States. 

B.1.1.529 has 32 mutations on the spike protein alone. This is an insane amount of change. As a comparison, Delta had 9 changes on the spike protein. We know that B.1.1.529 is not a “Delta plus” variant. The figure below shows a really long line, with no previous Delta ancestors. So this likely means it mutated over time in one, likely immunocompromised, individual.

The rate in which these cases are spreading are far higher than any previous variant. Disease modeling scientist Weiland estimated that B.1.1.529 is 500% more transmissible than the original Wuhan virus. (Delta was 70% more transmissible). John Burn-Murdoch (Chief Data Reporter at Financial Times) also found that B.1.1.529 is much more transmissible than Delta. 

I hope the positive notes Dr Jetelina has in the end will come through and we will not be sucked back in one more phase of this never-ending pandemic.

Entertainment, life

The year the Earth changed

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If you haven’t watched the documentary “The year the Earth changed” on Apple TV+, do yourself a favor: Subscribe and watch it! I guarantee it’s worth $5 you’ll pay, which still is less expensive than a lot of drinks at Starbucks.

The pandemic forced many of us to go into lockdowns, especially around March and April last year. The unusual pause in human activities led to a once-in-a-lifetime drop in human disturbance in the natural world. That is what this documentary is all about. The crew went to different parts of the world to record what happened to the Earth when humans paused for a change. They pieced together a beautiful story of how much the natural ecosystems benefited from our short-term retreat; which, by extension, is a condemnation of how detrimental our existence is to other species.

One example that I remember very well is how tourists to Africa endanger the lives of cheetah cubs. Cheetahs are the fastest sprinters in the world. They run fast because of their slender build. But it is exactly that build and the tendency to live individually that put them at disadvantage against other hunters such as lions or hyenas. Mother cheetahs are responsible for keeping their cubs safe and feeding them at least once every two or three days. The hunts are not always easy. Mother cheetahs may have to run very far away from their cubs to be able to catch and kill preys. Once a kill is completed, there begins a dilemma. Dragging a prey back to the cubs is a laborious task that may invite unwanted guests in hyenas and lions, against which the lonesome cheetahs stand little chance. Going back to fetch the cubs can protect the weak younglings, but mothers and children may find themselves with empty stomachs because the food will likely be stolen. Hence, mother cheetahs naturally use discreet and distinct voice to call the cubs over. They cannot make too big or too frequently a sound because danger always lurks around and the position of their powerless cubs may be compromised. Naturally, cheetahs adapt to the surrounding conditions to develop their ability to communicate with each other safely. Until humans. As tourists with all the noisy jeeps and talk make it exceedingly challenging for the cubs to listen to the call of their mothers. In the documentary, experts said that the pause in tourists to where cheetahs live increased the livelihood of cheetah cubs.

Listening to the engaging narration of David Attenborough and watching how other species’ lives amazingly became so much better without us is simply jaw-dropping. I couldn’t believe how much a disturbance we humans are. This pandemic is a blessing in disguise. No more theories. No more what-ifs. What happened in nature when we took a break was real. There is now recorded evidence that there is so much that we can and must do to protect our environment and other species.

An excellent documentary. Really thankful to those that put it together.

life, Optimism

Get back to what you love

by MQDuong1 Comment on Get back to what you love

Google just published a moving ads named “Get back to what you love”. Have a look. It’s been a while since I saw such a good ads from Google.

I got my 1st vaccine this week. The following day, I felt tired and my shoulder was all sore. But the soreness and tiredness didn’t last long. Two days after the dose was administered, I felt fine. After more than a year of isolation by myself in my apartment, I felt a tremendous feeling of relief. I can’t wait to get back to where we were before this nightmare started. You know, a proper haircut, meeting my friends, family & colleagues, taking a walk without a mask, eating a great meal in a restaurant freely, traveling.

You know, back to living.

I took this photo from Downtown Omaha. Folks were talking and having meals on terraces. Street artists were playing music. People were walking hand-in-hand, laughing and smiling. Car parks were crowded. I haven’t seen the area that vibrant for a very long time. According to the CDC, every state in the US has more than 25% of its population receive the 1st dose. I hope to see the herd immunity in a month or two. So that we can get back to what we love.

Downtown Omaha, Nebraska
Weekly readings

Weekly reading – 27th February 2021

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What I wrote last week

I reviewed The Spotify Play

Business

Profile of Bumble CEO

Interview with Spotify CEO, Daniel Elk

Frozen food sales have been boosted by Covid-19

When Did Generic Grocery Brands Get So Good Looking?

CBS and Showtime have a combined 30 million subscribers. Paramount+ with ads will go live with ads at $5/month in March and $10/month without ads in June

AT&T and TPG: There is No Why

What I found interesting

A COVID-19 vaccine life cycle: from DNA to doses

A look into Zuck and Kaplan’s influence on content moderation policies

Massive experiment shows why ticket sellers hit you with last-second fees

Sheryl Sandberg and Top Facebook Execs Silenced an Enemy of Turkey to Prevent a Hit to the Company’s Business

Abandoned houses in Japan can be bought for cheap as a get-away destination, but upgrading them can be very expensive

How Uber Deals with Large iOS App Size

Stats you may find interesting

Electric vehicles in the US reached 1.8% market share in 2020

This one stat is more horrifying than interesting. US exceeded 500,000 lives lost due to Covid-19

40% of Disney+ subscriber base are in the US. Because India is responsible for another 30% of the streamer’s subscriber count, the other markets such as Latin America and Europe combined make up 30% of its subscribers

86% of iPhones introduced in the last 4 years are on iOS14

Weekly readings

Weekly reading – 2nd January 2021

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What I wrote last week

I reviewed two books: Operaatio Elop and Turning The Flywheel

I wrote about an important lesson I will take with me into 2021

Business

How Domino’s Pizza Drove a 90x Increase in Stock Value

How to use Pinterest for Marketing

The fear of missing out seems to fuel venture capitalists and investors to value startups many many times over its revenue

How to build tech products for a diverse user base

WordPress has 40% market share

Restaurants complain about not making money with Instacart. If you outsource the relationship with your customers and accept the behind-the-scene role, you cede control as well as any profitability to Instacart.

Airlines are making it really hard for customers to use credits. All airlines try to make customers use credits, rather than get reimbursed with cash. But some, like United Airlines, are exceptionally terrible. It’s rich to claim you are about serving your customers when claiming flight credits because of Covid-19 is difficult.

Inside the deal between Google and Facebook that drew antitrust attention

The App Store and Google Play notched more than $400 million in spending on Christmas 2020, up 35% YoY

An interview with Strip Co-Founder. Stripe’s revenue in EMEA is reportedly almost $530 million in 2018.

Covid-19 has been good for streamers so far

A horrifying account of working at Apple by an international student

Oyo Chain Hotel is facing great challenges amidst Covid-19

Technology

How Apple’s rivals plan to catch up with the mighty M1 chip

EU Signs €145bn Declaration to Develop Next Gen Processors and 2nm Technology

What I found interesting

She Noticed $200 Million Missing, Then She Was Fired

What the Dunning-Kruger effect is and isn’t

Chinese Demography

China’s Empire of Concrete

Abortion, Once Unthinkable in Argentina, Becomes Legal

How ‘Feierabend’ helps Germans disconnect from the workday

A long read about the US’ response to Covid-19. I don’t know how anyone can read this report and say anything other than: there is blood on those who are supposed to be in charge, but fail their duty miserably.

A great read on why Trump supports connect with him. It’s not about policies or principles. It’s feelings. It’s about long held frustration.

Weekly readings

Weekly reading – 26th December 2020

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Last episode of 2020

What I wrote last week

Amazon’s bullying tactics and my thoughts on some antitrust issues

My review of Wonder Woman 1984 and why I like it

Business

Streaming Is Stalling: Can Music Keep Up in the Attention Economy?

The economics of the human hair trade

The global boom in neobanks – digital banks

Reuters reported that Apple Car might be coming soon in a few years. Much as I want to see that happen, I still remain pretty doubtful

Substack has more than 250,000 paid subscribers and the top 10 publishers earn more than $10 million/year

The death of department stores

Telegram is approaching 500 million active users and selling ads

Technology

YouTube’s recommendations try to give you toxic content, alleged an engineer who used to work on their algorithm

A few folks rendered a million webpages to find out what made websites load slowly

What I found interesting

A 9000-year-old Stonehenge-like structure was found under a lake in Michigan

Early humans may have slept through devastating winters

An insider story on why Vietnamese people in South Korea sent their infants back to the homeland on repatriation flights

Some amazing photos of Phan Thiet, Vietnam some decades ago

Life of an Iranian woman in Iran during Covid and amidst crushing sanctions from the US. Every time I read these stories, I am thankful for the life I currently have in the US. Is it perfect? No. But I’d be a damn fool not to appreciate it.

What’s the danger with Vietnam’s motorcycle helmets?

Weekly readings

Weekly readings – 31st October 2020

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What I wrote last week

Though AWS slowed, Amazon didn’t

My thoughts on Apple after their latest quarter and the last fiscal year

Business

Take-away lessons during the first 6 months of a Shopify employee. I find the read helpful, particularly the importance of understanding decision-makers’ attitude

From McDonald’s to Google: How Kelsey Hightower became one of the most respected people in cloud computing

Expensify CEO emailed his 10 million customers and asked them to vote for Biden. Though there are some who disagreed with him, they appreciated the openness. This is an example of how it should be done

Technology

Google announced Google One, a bundle that includes a VPN service, 2T of storage on Google Gmail & Drive and other benefits. Currently only available to Android devices in the US

Waymo made an unprecedented move to detail their behind-the-scene work on autonomous vehicles, including crashes and near-misses

What I found interesting

A story of a Uighur at a Chinese concentration camp

A study conducted by a Swedish university concluded that the Republican party has moved towards autocracies for the last 20 years

Brazil’s plan to exploit Amazon responsibly is in danger

A very eloquent, balanced and well-written endorsement for Joe Biden from The Economist

Just a hard breaking story from a Covid survivor in Texas

Weekly readings

Weekly readings – 11th October 2020

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What I wrote last week

My thoughts on Section 230 and why I think Facebook & Twitter are failing us

Business

An interview with the principal medical officer of Amazon Halo, Amazon’s latest health tracker. Amazon has an established relationship with consumers, a well-known & loved brand, a war chest and expertise in machine learning. It’ll be interesting to see how Amazon Halo will compete in this space.

A family business controls 97% of the ice cream truck music market

Covid-19 has decimated independent restaurants much more than it has the biggest chains

Google, once a friend, becomes a formidable foe of travel companies.

A startup released its Serie A funding round memo publicly. Pretty interesting.

The challenges that Disney faces in designing a strategy for Hulu

Technology

A comprehensive review of iOS14 and iPadOS14

Google announced a new feature that would allow users to look for songs by just humming. Don’t you love technology? It’s very remarkable

What I found interesting

Gen Z folks feed themselves misinformation. A pretty interesting yet scary revelation.

Pu Luong, a pristine and untouched beauty in the North of Vietnam, a few hours from the capital

How Oslo Achieved Zero Pedestrian and Bicycle Fatalities

If you have a chance to visit Dalat in Vietnam, try this dish. It’s great, delicious yet dirt cheap. I miss it.

On average, Americans spend $21 on subscriptions every month

Weekly readings

Weekly readings – 12th Sep 2020

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What I wrote

Three documentaries that I think will intrigue and interest you intellectually

Business

FT’s interview with Reed Hastings that gave some insights into Netflix’s culture

Contactless penetration in the US is around 5-6% while that in non-US markets is around 66%, according to Visa

Bessemer Venture Partners shared their internal memos on several investments, including those in Wix, Shopify or LinkedIn

Although interested viewers need to become a Disney+ subscriber and have to pay $30 for premier access to watch Mulan, the movie reportedly garnered $33 million in its opening weekend

An extensive investigation in Nikola and its CEO

WSJ’ profile of Alphabet CEO – Sundar Pichai

The Athletic says it hits 1 million subscribers after surviving sports shutdown

For a company whose most users are female, Pinterest has a working culture designed to instead favor men

A brief profile of Andy Sassy, the CEO of AWS

Though it has made significant strides in automated driving, owners should not rely on Tesla’s driver assistance features to necessarily add safety or to make driving easier, based on Consumer Reports’ extensive testing and experience. 

Most features within Tesla’s Full Self-Driving Capability suite worked inconsistently, including the Autopark self-parking system that has been around for several years.

Source: Consumer Report on Tesla
Source: Brickmeetsclick

Technology

TikTok revealed some details regarding their highly regarded algorithms

A brief overview of the new changes to the App Store guidelines

What I found interesting

The True Story of Lee Kuan Yew’s Singapore

An excellent study on the impact of Covid-19 policies on the economic recovery

US households spent only 40% of the first and only stimulus check so far. Some used up the check while others didn’t use it at all