Good reads on Business
What the Tech? The Apple Watch’s Straps Are More Than Just a Finishing Touch. “For us, the band is not at all about technology — each band expresses our love for materials, craft, and the process of making.” When we look at the Apple Watch, we may wonder how obvious the band looks. But I believe that a lot of research and technology went into bringing the band and Watch together into beings. We are used to having the tail of the band stick out on normal watches. On the other hand, the Apple Watch tucks the tail under the band itself. Even that little detail is worth commanding.
A couple of good posts on Visa here and here. If you aren’t familiar with what the company whose logo is on your debit or credit card does, have a read.
Web3 is Bullshit. The article is as provocative as the headline. I do; however, agree with some of the points the author made, regarding cryptocurrencies.
Ride-Hailing: Is It Sustainable? A good essay arguing that ride-hailing is a sustainable business and the likes of Uber and Lyft have untapped pricing power. I wrote quite a couple of pieces on Uber, you can check out here: Uber acquired Drizly and Postmates, Uber Q3 FY2021 earnings
Amazon is making its own containers and bypassing supply chain chaos with chartered ships and long-haul planes. “Who else would think of putting something going into an obscure port in Washington, and then trucking it down to L.A.? Most people are thinking, well, just bring the ship into L.A. But then you’re experiencing those two-week and three-weeks delay. So Amazon’s really taken advantage of some of the niche strategies I believe that the market needs to employ”
Kohl’s Urged to Consider Sale by Activist Investor. Engine Capital estimated that Kohl’s eCommerce business can be worth around $13 billion. My question concerns whether that estimate factors in the value of the physical stores. Walmart, Target and Best Buy know the importance of using stores to enhance customer experience and fulfill online orders. If Engine Capital or other activist investors want to separate the online business from physical stores, how do they think the online business alone would fare against the likes of Amazon?
Scaling to $100 Million. ARR and Margin. ARR and Margin.
Stuff that I found interesting
Flutter allows developers to build apps for mobile, web and desktop from a single code base
Climate change: Is ‘blue hydrogen’ Japan’s answer to coal? Any disaster that costs lives is tragic, but I can’t help thinking that the switch back from nuclear to coal is massively disappointing
Grapefruit Is One of the Weirdest Fruits on the Planet. An interesting article on grapefruit. “Because those base fruits are all native to Asia, the vast majority of hybrid citrus fruits are also from Asia. Grapefruit, however, is not. In fact, the grapefruit was first found a world away, in Barbados, probably in the mid-1600s. In 1664, a Dutch physician named Wouter Schouden visited Barbados and described the citrus he sampled there as “tasting like unripe grapes.” In 1814, John Lunan, a British plantation and slave owner from Jamaica, reported that this fruit was named “on account of its resemblance in flavour to the grape. A Frenchman named Odet Philippe is generally credited with bringing the grapefruit to the American mainland, in the 1820s. He was the first permanent European settler in Pinellas County, Florida, where modern-day St. Petersburg* lies.”
The Many Worlds of Enough. “Ambition is largely driven by self-actualization, or the desire to become a more capable person. And when this happens, it’s only natural that good outcomes arise. You’ll witness bumps in your reputation, be offered higher salaries, and so on. But these things happen as a byproduct of your ambition, and not because these outcomes were your primary desires. Greed, however, is when those outcomes become your primary desires. When prestige, praise, and power are the reasons why you are ambitious, that’s no longer driven by self-actualization. That’s when you lust for everything that is external to you. It’s rather difficult to know where this point is, as the boundary between ambition and greed can be blurry. But for the most part, you’ve entered the domain of greed when you no longer pursue an endeavor because you’re curious about it. It’s when the coldness of utility replaces the warmth of curiosity.”
The $11-billion Webb telescope aims to probe the early Universe. If everything goes as planned, the Webb telescope will be 1.5 million kilometers away from Earth. 1.5 MILLION kilometers. Science and technology are just amazing.
Why U.S. Infrastructure Costs So Much. “Mile for mile, studies show the U.S. spends more than all but five other countries in the world on public transit, and more on roads than any other country that discloses spending data. In 2013, Portland’s 7-mile Milwaukie light rail extension cost more than $200 million per mile, as much as a full subway system would cost in many European cities. The first phase of the Second Avenue Subway in Manhattan, the most expensive subway project in the world, cost $2.5 billion per mile, nearly five times the cost of a similar extension in Paris. Spending swelled across three problem areas: over-design, inefficient project management and misaligned politics”
Stats
Global Logistics and Supply Chain is a $11 trillion market
Lieferando has…99% of Germany’s food delivery market
YouTube removed 2.2 million videos that violated copyrights between January and June 2021
Consumers are expected to spend $133 billion on apps in 2021. The App Store continues to dominate Google Play
Remittances to Vietnam in 2021 are projected to hit $18.1 billion
Minh Quang Duong 