Tag: India

Weekly readings

Weekly reading – 24th December 2022

by MQDuongLeave a Comment on Weekly reading – 24th December 2022

Business

Fortnite Video Game Maker Epic Games to Pay More Than Half a Billion Dollars over FTC Allegations of Privacy Violations and Unwanted Charges. This announcement is devastating to Epic Games. Two record-breaking settlements in the history of the FTC that amount to more than half a billion dollars unquestionably hurts. Not only financially but also legally and reputationally. Epic Games has been involved in legal battles against Apple, claiming to fight for developers. Instead, they were caught red-handed. This case shows that Apple has a point in centralizing payments in order to protect consumers, especially minors. I am not saying Apple is perfect. Far from it. But in this case, Epic Games is the worst company on the market that brings an antitrust lawsuit against Apple. Apple lawyers cannot have a better start of the week.

($) Supply Chains Upended by Covid Are Back to Normal. “Goods are moving around the world again and reaching companies and consumers, despite some production snarls and Covid outbreaks inside China. Gone are the weekslong backlogs of cargo ships at large ports. Ocean shipping rates have plunged below prepandemic levels. “It’s obvious that freight rates peaked and began to normalize, driven by falling demand and an easing supply-chain congestion,” said Soren Skou, chief executive of Maersk. In November, the shipping company lowered its 2023 forecast for container demand—a proxy for global trade. It now expects a decline from 2% to 4%, from a maximum decline of 1% previously.“

How Mastodon is scaling amid the Twitter exodus. It is fascinating that Mastodon has 2.5 million monthly active users yet is maintained as a non-profit organization by one person only

The Blackstone of Innovation. A quick overview of the Venture Capital business. I’d recommend the Venture Deals book if you were interested in the VC world and key terms that are often mentioned on the news.

Why YouTube spent the money on NFL Sunday Ticket. YouTube wants content creators to spend more time creating content for Shorts. The more content, the more eyeballs and hence the more advertising revenue. Platforms are fighting one another fiercely to keep creators and generate quality content. Even though this deal is not cheap, it does seem to serve YouTube in more than just one way

Invisible asymptotes. At a certain point, every company will have a ceiling that caps its growth curve if there is no change in strategy. Such a ceiling is called invisible asymptote. Eugene Wei wrote a great post on invisible asymptotes of some of the biggest tech names out there.

A fascinating Twitter thread on perfume ads

Other stuff I find interesting

#WorldCup on Twitter: The G.O.A.T.

($) Many Hospitals Get Big Drug Discounts. That Doesn’t Mean Markdowns for Patients. “Under the program, hospitals buy drugs at reduced prices and sell them to patients and their insurers for much more, often at facilities in affluent communities. One participant is the Cleveland Clinic’s flagship hospital, which reported $1.35 billion in net income last year. The hospital doesn’t admit enough Medicaid and low-income Medicare patients to qualify for low-cost drugs under the program’s original requirements. But a quirk in federal law allowed the hospital to qualify as a “rural referral center,” despite its location near the center of Cleveland. Despite the benefits, the program hasn’t resulted in new drug discounts for low-income Cleveland Clinic patients, nor has it caused the hospital to increase the financial assistance it offers to those who can’t afford care. The charity care the main hospital writes off represents less than 2% of its patient revenue, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of hospital Medicare filings.” How much patients would benefit if the government could look into loopholes like this and close them?

TikTok Spied On Forbes Journalists. This is very devastating to TikTok and concerning for everybody else. I deleted my TikTok app a long time ago and never regret it even for one second. Stories that surfaced recently show that TikTok gathers a lot of data on user and engages in surveillance tracking. The US government already bans TikTok on government devices. But why stops there? Why not outlawing the service throughout the US? In that case, it would badly decimate TikTok’s ads business and could probably bankrupt the company. That’s not to mention the EU that is even less forgiving on this kind of surveillance than the US. Honestly, I don’t see a way back for TikTok.

The Secret To Better Habits in 2023. A great timely read

Unpacking India’s growth, geopolitics, technology and superpower potential. “I asked him to make the strongest case he could against the growth story. He set the stage by saying India is a vast and diverse country. There is no other democracy of this size and heterogeneity in both a social as well as geographical sense. Rajeev has held a view that the Western countries want India to do well enough to be an attractive market for their own companies but that they may not actually want India to keep building economic capabilities because, with economic size and capacity, India could become more competitive in the foreign policy realm in particular.”

Stats

The EU will grant €1.13bn to tech startups in 2023. Still it doesn’t seem enough in the grand scheme of things

World Cup Final Draws Record 16.8 Million Viewers for Fox

Amazon Fresh is currently operating 44 stores

Servers cost Twitter $1.5 billion a year

Weekly readings

Weekly reading – 1st October 2022

by MQDuongLeave a Comment on Weekly reading – 1st October 2022

What I wrote last week

The push to grow the complex Bundles by Disney

Decoupling – A great tool to analyze business strategies and disruption

Business

Instacart Offers Grocers the Future of Grocery in a Bundle. Instacart becomes a much more interesting company with these innovations. Pushing a heavy cart around and waiting in line forever just to check out is not a great customer experience. The Caper Cart sounds like a game changer for grocers, shoppers and Instacart. These products are so different economically than delivery services. This helps diversifying Instagram, adding revenue stream and reducing risks.

Why India’s small sellers still don’t trust Amazon. The relationship between Amazon and Indian sellers is so strained that I struggle to see how the company can succeed in this important market.

What Chinese media reveals about Shein’s secretive operations. “There are two main kinds of suppliers: “free on board,” those that make simple designs they haven’t devised themselves, and “original design manufacturers,” those that do both. They all feed into Shein’s sprawling manufacturing execution system (MES). The designer-suppliers will find pictures online and send a selection to Shein’s internal buyers for consideration; the buyer and their manager settle on a final pool. Once samples have been received, there might be two, or even three, rounds of changes before manufacturing can commence. (The entire time, everything needs to be recorded in the MES — materials, pricing, even chat logs — something suppliers balk at, because, if the deal falls through, all the information sits in Shein’s records, and there’s nothing to stop them from producing it elsewhere.). hein is ruthlessly efficient when it comes to evaluating its suppliers, according to analysis by Zhongtai Securities. A scoring system sorts the wheat from the chaff. Timeliness of procurement and delivery, stocking and delivery, rate of defects, and the success rate of new products make up 40% of a supplier’s score. The remaining 60% is based on order volume. They are then tiered into five levels, and the bottom 30% of the lowest tier are culled.”

The Ascendancy of Ahold Delhaize. “Ahold Delhaize USA has been strengthening its position as it looks to take its hyper-local value proposition national. After blockbuster revenue years in 2020 and 2021, Ahold Delhaize has demonstrated that it can keep growing by focusing on omnichannel innovation, prioritizing value and expanding its assortment of high-quality, low-cost private-brand products. “

($) The Unstoppable Rise of Aldi in Britain Shows No Sign of Slowing. “A recent visit to Purley, south London, found the parking lot outside Aldi boasting BMWs, Land Rovers and Porsches and shoppers choosing Aldi over nearby branches of Lidl and Sainsbury, as well as the upmarket Waitrose 10 minutes away. An extra 1.5 million customers have visited Aldi over the past three months. When sales were up by at most the low single digits at most UK supermarkets, they rose 19% at Aldi and 20.9% at Lidl. Part of the strategy is economy of scale. Aldi has about 2,000 key products in store, compared with as many as 30,000 in some large rival supermarkets. By stocking just one ketchup, for example, Aldi has a tight supply chain and can avoid pricing rows like Tesco’s recent spats with Kraft Heinz Co. and Mars Inc.“

How Bryan Lourd became one of the most powerful people in the history of Hollywood. A phenomenal story. Bryan Lourd worked his way from a mail room to being one of the most powerful people in Hollywood.

How Arm conquered the chip market without making a single chip, with CEO Rene Haas. I am not a fan of Nilay or The Verge’s new website look, but this is a great interview on one of the most important players in the chip industry. Especially when Arm is not really a household consumer name

Amazon dominates the $113 billion smart home market — here’s how it uses the data it collects. Amazon has a major trust issue because no matter what the company says, I don’t think consumers trust Amazon to do the right things with their data.

Other stuff I find interesting

Why the Rush to Mine Lithium Could Dry Up the High Andes. “With the world’s car fleets transitioning to electric propulsion, Argentina, with reserves of up to 60 million metric tons, according to government estimates, is well-positioned to profit from the lithium rush. Lax regulation and low taxes make its part of the Lithium Triangle — in the northwestern provinces of Jujuy, Salta, and Catamarca — “especially attractive for foreign investors,” according to Lucas Gonzalez of the National Scientific and Technical Research Council (CONICET), a government agency in Buenos Aires. The country could soon become the world’s second-largest lithium producer, after Australia, and the largest producer from evaporative mining. But every ton of lithium carbonate extracted from underground using this cheap, low-tech method typically dissipates into the air about half a million gallons of water that is vital to the arid high Andes. The extraction lowers water tables, and because freshwater often sits on top of salty water, this has the potential to dry up the lakes, wetlands, springs, and rivers that flourish where the underground water reaches the surface.“

Charging cars at home at night is not the way to go, Stanford study finds. “The move to electric vehicles will result in large costs for generating, transmitting, and storing more power. Shifting current EV charging from home to work and night to day could cut costs and help the grid“

New ways to make more sustainable choices. I’d love to try out these new features, especially the updates on recipes

iPhone 14 Pro Review: No phone is an island. I like Jason’s review of iPhone 14 Pro. A few friends of mine belittled Apple for the lack of innovation. I mean, that criticism is fair when it comes to the lower lineup iPhone 14, but the Pro version is much further ahead with a lot of cool features and innovation. It’s also great financially for Apple, to sell more expensive and higher margin phones, especially when there is shortage of components.

How Apple Pay works under the hood? An example of how complex payments are under the hood and how far technology has come to enable such complexity in mere seconds

Stats

Biden’s plan to cancel student loans will cost taxpayers $400 billion, among the most expensive initiatives his administration puts forward

6000 children died on EU roads in ten years

Amazon commits to hiring 5,000 refugees by the end of 2024. A big YES to this!

Weekly readings

Weekly reading – 9th July 2022

by MQDuongLeave a Comment on Weekly reading – 9th July 2022

Business

Payments “Revolution” — Visa drives a surge in digital transactions. A great interview with the CFO of Visa. In this episode, Vasant talked about how Visa makes money in general and the company’s position with regard to the supposed threats such as Open Banking, Buy Now Pay Later or Cryptocurrencies.

($) TikTok Turns On the Money Machine. “ByteDance’s hit video app is on track to triple revenue this year to $12 billion, threatening Facebook’s hold on social media. TikTok has an edge against Meta that Apple Inc. helped solidify. Last year, the Cupertino, Calif.-based company updated its iPhone operating system so that users have to opt in to let apps like Facebook track their activities as they used other software on their phones. Most users decided not to let Meta track them, a change Zuckerberg has blamed for financial troubles like those in February. TikTok, it turns out, isn’t relying so much on that kind of tracking data. Its artificial intelligence discerns a user’s likes or dislikes largely from activities on the platform, picking up on how long you watch, say, a cat video, a skateboarding clip or lip-synced dancing. TikTok’s algorithms can then match up users with not just content, but advertising too.”

($) Americans Have Had It With Inflation. Consumers are showing signs that spending is not as strong as some companies make it out to be. With damaging inflation showing no signs of abating, persistent supply chain issues and vulnerable consumer spending, the future looks bleak

($) The Secret Sauce That’s Made Slutty Vegan a $100 Million Chain. A fascinating story about a business founded by a fascinating 34-year-old woman.

How the man behind the Apple Store presided over a Spac catastrophe. Ron Johnson is richer and more famous than most of us, but one thing that we haven’t done is to lose millions of dollars in a business catastrophe in a short time. Past credentials are useful as signals, but they don’t guarantee the same success in the future. Just because someone is rich and famous doesn’t also mean that they have the right opinions or can do everything.

Online grocery shoppers spend more but less loyal. “The vast majority of the 45% of consumers who shop for groceries online are omnichannel shoppers. While their monthly average grocery spend is $594 compared with $388 for in-store-only shoppers, online shoppers spend their dollars across a greater number of retailers monthly, between 3.9 to 6.6 stores per month compared with 3.2 for in-store only, the customer data science firm said.”

($) Intel Bets 17 Billion Euros on a Tech Revival in Eastern German. Intel has made a lot of headlines lately with their planned investments. The key here is that everything is just a plan and full of promises. Nothing has actually come to fruition yet. Intel fell far behind their competitors in terms of technology. In the world of semiconductor, it’s very challenging to make up ground. And I wonder how Intel will pull that off while fulfilling their promises to build plants in Europe and Ohio. Or is that the case of, and I quote somebody in the article, “promises are cheap”?

Other stuff I find interesting

How football shirts chart the rise and fall of tech giants. Football is THE global sport. It’s no surprise to see companies craving for eyeballs spend millions of dollars to appear on teams’ shirts.

Layover or nonstop? UCLA Health research says unique pattern of connectivity lets highly creative people’s brains take road less traveled to their destination. About 15 years ago, somebody said something that stuck with me till this day: it’s all a big giant jigsaw. The more pieces you gather, the more likely you can complete the jigsaw. You just need to find the pieces, whether it’s through experience or reading. It really motivates me to read and improve myself constantly. When I read the article, it reminded of that lesson. In this case, highly creative people have the “pieces” required to take the less traveled path. Somehow, their upbringing, their personality and life experience give them the pieces they need to be who they are and think the way they do.

The local news crisis is deepening America’s divides. You can’t make great decisions without being informed. I don’t think national news outlets have the resources to cover everything in every local community. As more regional news outlets shut down, citizens don’t have enough information on their communities; which affect their votes and decisions. And if there is one thing everybody should know about politics in America in the last 10-15 years, it’s that voting matters at every level.

Japan’s shochu capital becomes new hot spot for whisky. “Traditionally known for its shochu, a clear liquor made from grains, potatoes, sugar cane and more, Japan’s southwestern region of Kyushu has become home to a budding whisky industry as craft distillers chase a larger, more global audience. Surrounded by vegetable fields and rice paddies, Shindo Distillery began producing whisky in the Fukuoka Prefecture city of Asakura in summer 2021. The facility belongs to Shinozaki, a storied barley shochu maker founded in 1922. Shinozaki is branching out “because demand for Japanese whisky is skyrocketing,” said Michiaki Shinozaki, who is part of the eighth generation of the founding family.”

Tips for Productivity, Thinking, and Doing. I wholeheartedly agree with this post, especially on the morning routine, the value of writing and the benefits of getting the most important thing done early.

What Is the Pesco Mediterranean Diet? I am actually following the Pesco Mediterranean Diet right now. It’s more about my love for sea food than trying to meet the daily protein intake. It also makes the transition to a plant-focused diet such as Mediterranean Diet easier. If you are looking for a diet that is great for your health, look this up.

Stats

India consumed 6 million tons of meat in 2020

40% of Google users use IPv6

In Zambia, only 10% of the adult population uses a debit card.

FedEx estimates savings of $400 million annually from retiring mainframes

Amazon Prime reportedly had 172 million members in the US as of June 2022

Weekly readings

Weekly reading – 4th June 2022

by MQDuongLeave a Comment on Weekly reading – 4th June 2022

What I wrote last week

Book Review: Trillion Dollar Triage

How Walmart Is Betting On Stores To Catch Amazon In E-Commerce

Business

Amazon Briefing: One year into Andy Jassy’s tenure, sellers see subtle strategic shifts. Under Bezos, Amazon was maniacal about being consumer-oriented. Using the iron grip on consumers, especially Prime members, Amazon managed to exert their bargaining power on merchants. According to the article, there are already subtle changes under Jassy regarding how to work with merchants. Merchants have more dialogue with senior folks from Amazon, but they are expected to spend more on ads and prove their unit economics value to Amazon. The push to grow ads revenue may have one important downstream effect: if shoppers are bombarded with sponsored items instead of what are best for them, there is no telling how that could damage Amazon and loosen their grip on prized Prime members

The first act of the streaming wars saga is over — Netflix’s fall from grace has ushered in the pivotal second act. The first phase is to establish presence. Now, all these streamers need to figure out some tough questions. First, how can they make money while spending a lot of money on content? Streaming is an arms race. You need great content all the time to acquire and retain subscribers. But investors’ patience is wearing thin. They want to see profits. Hence, streamers have a tough balancing act on hands. Secondly, ads or no ads? Disney+ and Netflix are planning to go live with ads-supported plans later this year. However, ads is not a trivial business. There is also a question of consumer experience. Additionally, expanding internationally or not expanding? An international expansion requires extra investments in marketing and content. If you go to India without local content at a dirt cheap price, you won’t win the battle. But this goes back to the first question. If a streamer spends too much on content and marketing, how can it turn profits? All in all, such an interesting space to keep an eye on

Facing Inflation-Weary Shoppers, Grocers Fight Price Increases. As inflation keeps rising, consumers turn to private labels instead of more expensive national brands. Private labels give grocers a higher margin, but the key here is to keep customers happy while resisting the pressure from vendors. Those who can make shoppers happy in tough times like this may get the permanent business in the long run. For me, Aldi has been my go-to grocer for a long time with their highly competitive grocery prices.

Bull Market Rhymes. “I don’t think investors are actually forgetful.  Rather, knowledge of history and the appropriateness of prudence sit on one side of the balance, and the dream of getting rich sits on the other.  The latter always wins.  Memory, prudence, realism, and risk aversion would only get in the way of that dream.  For this reason, reasonable concerns are regularly dismissed when bull markets get going. “

Spotify Podcasters Are Making $18,000 a Month With Nothing But White Noise. Who would have thought that white noise could be a lucrative podcast category?

Other stuff I find interesting

Sun-Starved Sweden Turns to Solar to Fill Power Void. It’s intriguing that Sweden shut down two nuclear plants and relies on solar power for electricity despite lacking sunlight for a long period of time in a year.

While Electric Vehicles Proliferate, Charging Stations Lag Behind. There are 93,000 public charging stations in the country, but it’s estimated that we need 1.2 million more. That’s how much we are lagging behind. The governments, local or federal, need to take a lead in this and perhaps losses too in the beginning to encourage more purchase and usage of electric vehicles.

90% of Women in India Are Shut Out of the Workforce. I have to say that this is an eye-opening yet disappointing read. I 100% support gender equality. To me, there is absolutely no reason why female can’t work or receive the same level of treatment as men do. Hence, it’s insane to think that only 10% of women in a country with 1.3 billion people in population are working. How much more productivity could be unlocked if women could work?

AC Milan’s ‘Mind Room’: The story behind an innovative psychology lab. Fascinating!

Here’s why you shouldn’t miss ‘bột chiên’ while in Ho Chi Minh City. It’s one of my all-time favorite dishes in Vietnam and Saigon. You don’t experience the local cuisine until you try it

Stats

Disney+ Hotstar Hits 5 Million Subscribers in Indonesia

App Store stopped nearly $1.5 billion in fraudulent transactions in 2021

Safari reached one billion worldwide users

Source: Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco

Weekly readings

Weekly reading – 30th April 2022

by MQDuongLeave a Comment on Weekly reading – 30th April 2022

What I wrote last week

Thoughts on Buy With Prime

Business

Starbucks Is Having an Identity Crisis. Can Howard Schultz Fix It? 70% of Starbuck’s orders are to-go. The popularity of their mobile app is magnificent, yet it goes against the identity that Howard Schultz envisioned when he bought the brand. He wanted Starbucks to be the 3rd place that people frequent in addition to work and home. Starbucks needs to decide on its future identity and positioning. Because if most orders are picked up at drive-through, what the hell are the stores for?

Will Ford’s new truck finally make Americans buy electric? “Surveys, both by the company and independent analysts, have found that customers for the F-150 are typically younger, richer, more urban than the truck’s traditional mainstream buyer – and in many cases have never owned a truck before. Like the rest of the industry, the company is contending with shortages of key computer processing chips, batteries and other materials that have held back production – and challenged the company’s effort to keep the starting price at about $40,000 (£31,500)”. It doesn’t sound very easy, does it?

Netflix’s Battle for Asian Subscribers Pits It Against Rich Rivals, Hundreds of Local Upstarts. The challenge for Netflix in Asia is multiple-fold. First, it has to keep the subscription prices low while needing to spend millions of dollars on local original content. Second, its competition is nothing but fierce and they are willing to keep the prices low to retain customers. Some such as Disney or Amazon are willing to splash a big sum on sports such as IPL to woo local viewers in India. Netflix hasn’t shown interest in following suit so far. The company once thought invincible at least in the streaming world doesn’t look invincible, does it?

Kard, a fintech that helps credit card issuers build custom reward programs by brands. “The company works with roughly 30 issuers today, representing 10 million consumers, Mackinnon said. It helps process about 60 million transactions per month, and has seen revenue grow 10x over the past year, according to Mackinnon, though he declined to share a specific revenue figure. He describes the business as a two-sided marketplace for rewards, with merchant partnerships on the supply side and card issuers on the demand side. For issuers, the API is powerful because it “connects them to merchants, brands, retailers that essentially are the funding vehicle for any of their rewards,”

Netflix’s Big Wake-Up Call: The Power Clash Behind the Crash. Cindy Holland seems to be the one person who wants to steer Netflix to adopt Apple TV+’s strategy. Nobody can guarantee that if Cindy hadn’t left, Netflix wouldn’t be in where they are today. She could have stayed and Netflix could have been just as bad or worse. But it’s baffling to let go the relationship-building wizard that forged a bond with the studios and not find a replacement. I have to say, though, that when Netflix was dominating the streaming market and a darling of Wall Street, you didn’t get to read these pieces. You were served with articles on how great Netflix and its culture were. As soon as the company’s fortune plummeted, critical reporting show up like mushrooms after rain.

Vietnam’s VinFast takes the EV battle to Tesla with U.S. push. The pace of development at Vinfast fits the culture of quick results and brand ambition at Vingroup. That’s how they always do things. That approach doesn’t necessarily come with the best quality of products or services. Hence, the question becomes: do they think up a thorough plan to penetrate and dominate the EV market in the US? Every car maker in the world wants to succeed in the US. It’s home to Tesla, which has an enormous scale advantage. It’s home to Ford, which is always a familiar brand in the mind of Americans. There are always Volswagen, Hyundai, Kia, Subaru, Toyota, Mazda etc…Such a list of world-famous brands indicate nothing but fierce competition. The first movers also have great scale advantage. List cars at too high a price and Vinfast won’t make enough sale. List them too low and the company wont have any profit. Whether Vinfast can weather the initial storm to reach critical mass remains a giant question mark.

Inside the first suburban Amazon Go store. I have a nagging feeling that Amazon is playing a really long game here and soon enough in the future they will become a major grocery chain

Other stuff I find interesting

Why didn’t our ancient ancestors get cavities? It is a very interesting theory that our transition to agriculture is the likely cause of our cavities

Women and girls have to pay for water with their body and dignity. The struggle people in poor countries around the world has to face makes it even more incredulous whenever folks in the US complain about trivial problems. I don’t know like having to wear a mask during Covid or taking life-saving vaccines.

Stats

According to the founder of TSMC, it costs 50% more to produce the same chips in the US than in Taiwan

80% of US consumers use BNPL to avoid credit cards, according to Experian

According to Mastercard, global first-party fraud which refers to a legitimate online purchase being disputed after the fact amounts to $50 billion

Online retail sales in India is estimated to reach $85.5 billion in 2025

Banks and credit unions pulled in more than $15 billion in overdraft and related fees in 2019 and $12 billion in late credit card fees in 2020

Google Pay has 150 million users across 40 countries, as of April 2022

Weekly readings

Weekly reading – 26th March 2022

by MQDuongLeave a Comment on Weekly reading – 26th March 2022

Business

The 2022 iPhone SE. “There is a profound thoughtfulness and longevity to this design. Like an all-time great athlete, years past their prime, but still pulling their weight on the team, contributing something essential. This is backward compatibility Apple-style — not technical compatibility, but experiencecompatibility. The iPhone SE is the comfort iPhone”

‘Extremely awkward’: Bob Chapek and Bob Iger had a falling out, they rarely talk — and the rift looms over Disney’s future. I remember when Jobs passed away and Cook took over as the CEO, many thought it would mean a bleak future for Apple. Nothing could be further from the truth. As a consequence, even though I personally admire Iger and remain positively cautious about Chapek, what happened to Apple might be repeated for Disney. Yes, Chapek may not be a people’s leader and his promotion of Kareem puts too much power in the hands of his confidante. Yet, even some of his skeptics admit that Chapek is a skilled and determined operator. Perhaps, that’s what Disney needs. We’ll see at the end of FY2024.

Two-Minute Battery Changes Propel India’s Shift to E-Scooters. “Sagyarani, a 38-year-old e-shuttle driver for MetroRide, pulls up to one of startup Sun Mobility’s 14 automated orange-and-black booths, taps her authentication key to open a vacant compartment, inserts a drained battery and pulls out a fully powered pack. That means more hours on the road transporting commuters to metro stations, MetroRide’s main business. Another bonus: it costs just 50 rupees (67 cents) to swap out a single fully discharged battery, which is about half the price of 1 liter (¼ gallon) of gasoline. Swapping in India will be mainly used by the nation’s 1.5 million electric rickshaws that make up 83% of total EV sales. Because swappable batteries deliver a shorter range, they’re a better fit for the low-speed vehicles as opposed to sedans and SUVs, which need high-power batteries to deliver greater distance“

European Lawmakers Reach Deal on Sweeping New Digital-Competition Law. “Widely known as the DMA, the legislation could affect many corners of the tech world. It is aimed broadly at limiting the ability of the biggest tech companies from taking advantage of their powerful presence in digital markets—including the app ecosystem, online shopping and online advertising. Provisions in the text, if agreed upon, would allow developers to make their apps available to iPhone users without going through Apple Inc.’s App Store and could limit how sites such as Alphabet Inc.’s Google and Amazon.com Inc. can rank their own products and services ahead of those offered by smaller competitors in search results.”

Other stuff I found interesting

A truly great site on iconic food packaging

An excellent profile of Mohammad Bin Salman (MBS). It’s utterly unthinkable to see how much power a man can have over a country in this day and age. Until you look at the rulers of Saudi Arabia. What is frightening is that some said that when, not if, he becomes a king, Crown Prince MBS will look like an angel.

Inside the Fight Over the Future of New York City’s Outdoor Dining. When I was in New York a few months ago, I was fascinated by the outdoor dining scenes of the city. Industry, entrepreneurship and authenticity. The Open Restaurants program has saved more than 100,000 jobs since June 2020. Evidence of how outdoor dining contributes economically to the city. Personally, I loved to visit some of those restaurants. However, there are downsides. The city can look messy and dirty, and the restaurant outdoor settings take up invaluable parking space that is already in far greater demand than supply can handle.

Stats

The U.S. online grocery market hit $8.7 billion for February

New car total sales are expected to hit 3,228,000 units in Q1 2022, according to J.D Power

“U.S. retail sales of plant-based foods grew 6.2% in 2021 over a record year of growth in 2020, bringing the total plant-based market value to an all-time high of $7.4 billion”

The average price for an Oscar commercial is about $1.71 million

Weekly readings

Weekly reading – 26th February 2022

by MQDuongLeave a Comment on Weekly reading – 26th February 2022

What I wrote last week

Travel during Covid, from the US to Vietnam with a transit at Haneda Airport in Japan

Business

Some Companies Ditch Annual Raises and Review Worker Pay More Often. I support the review of pay and performance more often than just once a year. The practice will enable workers to make adjustments more timely and get rewarded for their hard work faster. What’s there not to like?

Craft Beer Snobs Suddenly Love the Humble Lager. “Lagers, which range from the bright yellow pilsner to the darker, full-bodied Märzen, are produced at low temperatures. The slow fermentation and refrigeration process reduces the speed of yeast activity during conditioning, creating a crisp flavor and brilliant color. But keeping the beer in tanks for the weeks it takes to make a lager costs more time and money. Lagers are the most popular style of beer on the U.S. market, according to an analysis by Allied Market Research.”

Inside Peloton’s epic run of bungled calls and bad luck. Epic indeed. It’s a major red flag that a Board of Directors had to tell its CEO to take his ambitious claims down a notch.

Netflix struggles with ambitions in India. I don’t know if Netflix’s alleged 5.5 million subscribers in India is correct, but its struggle to fight Amazon Prime and Disney is widely reported. There is a reason why Netflix cut its prices in India by 60%. According to Financial Times, the company’s struggle stems from the failure to localize its strategy and cater to the India consumers. Time will tell if Netflix will become more competitive in such an important market. “According to one industry veteran, Netflix’s approach “was more like, ‘I have built the plumbing for the whole world, I just need to turn on the tap in India,’ instead of having an India strategy”.

Berkshire Hathaway’s 2021 annual letter. “Whatever our form of ownership, our goal is to have meaningful investments in businesses with both durable economic advantages and a first-class CEO. Please note particularly that we own stocks based upon our expectations about their long-term business performance and not because we view them as vehicles for timely market moves. That point is crucial: Charlie and I are not stock-pickers; we are business-pickers.”

On the Origin of the iPhone

Boeing outsourced $9-per-hour engineers in India to write the software for Boeing 737. If pushed too far, the urge to generate as big a bottom line as possible can mean a world of harm to a company, including human lives. What happened to Boeing and its 737’s deadly crashes are a perfect example of that. I am not saying that $9-per-hour engineers aren’t technically good. The use of these low-pay contractors may not be THE reason for the crashes. It surely adds to the disturbing reports on Boeing’s less than ideal due diligence in manufacturing 737s.

Other stuff I find interesting

Inside Pornhub. An interesting look inside one of the most popular porn sites on the Net as well as the content moderation issue.

USPS is deploying gasoline-powered delivery fleet in a snub to the Biden’s administration’s effort to reduce carbon emissions. It’s a mystery to me that Louis DeJoy is still the CEO of USPS

The digestible Ukraine explainer you’ve been waiting for. Treat it as a starter, not a comprehensive read on the subject. Regardless, it’s mind-blowing that we are at risk of having World War III when the pandemic is still wrecking havoc around the world

Why did renewables become so cheap so fast? A pretty interesting piece on the prices of energy from different sources as well as some alleged reasons for the price movements.

Stats

“Global Consumer Spending in Top 100 Subscription Apps Climbed 41% to $18.3 Billion in 2021”

Apple is the top brand in the US, according to a survey of more than 13,500 consumers by prophet

Ethiopia will spend 5.6% of its gross domestic product, or $6 billion, each year until 2030 to counter the impact of floods, climate-driven diseases, hailstorms and wildfires

Source: Techcrunch
Random

What remittance providers you should NOT use

by MQDuong1 Comment on What remittance providers you should NOT use

For many immigrants such as myself, remittance is part of the life living overseas. We work hard here and send a bit of help back home whenever we can. In normal times, such assistance is a nice touch. In times like this when many parts of the world such as Vietnam are in strict lockdown because of Covid, it becomes even more critical and appreciated. In times like this, it matters more which remittance providers we entrust with our money to family and loved ones. In this post, I’ll tell you which ones I’d use myself, what I’d not and why.

When it comes to choosing a provider through which I can send money back home, these are the main selection criteria:

  • Are they reliable? This is money we’re talking about. Of course, we want it to be safe and secure. Luckily, the most popular services on the market have a good reliable track record. If not, they wouldn’t service in this business.
  • How long will it take for money to be deposited? Nowadays, it takes much less time for recipients to see money show up in their bank accounts than it did just a few years ago. A transfer can arrive at the receiving account in a few hours or within a day. My experience is that the top providers can transfer funds at pretty much the same speed.
  • How much does it cost in total? This is THE deciding factor. Influencing the net amount that recipients receive are the fees and the exchange rate. The best way to evaluate different services is to look at the final amount that will be credited to the destination account.

I conducted two experiments in which I looked at what would happen if I transferred $1,000 to Vietnam and India using the most inexpensive method through 6 select providers: Xoom/PayPal, Money Gram, World Remite, Ulink Remit, Western Union and Wise. Here are the results:

$1,000 from the U.S to Vietnam$1,000 from the U.S to India
Wise22,544,180 VND72,450 INR
Money Gram22,537,350 VND72,663 INR
Ulink Remit22,226,000 VND72,565 INR
World Remit22,140,076 VND71,930 INR
Xoom/PayPal22,348,000 VND72,034 INR
Western Union22,468,068 VND72,606 INR
Figure 1 – Net amount received when $1,000 is sent to Vietnam & India using different remittance services

In both cases, Wise, Western Union and Money Gram are very competitive. Ulink Remit should be considered if the destination is India. Both World Remit and PayPal should not be considered. I don’t know about the value of a few Rupees in India, but if I have to lose a couple of thousand Vietnam Dongs on every $1,000 sent back home, I’ll be put off. Personally for me, Western Union, Wise and Money Gram will be the go-to services to send money to Vietnam. What is yours?

Net amount received when $1,000 is sent to Vietnam through different providers
Figure 2 – Net amount received when $1,000 is sent to Vietnam through different providers
Net amount received when $1,000 is sent to India through different providers
Figure 3 – Net amount received when $1,000 is sent to India through different providers

Figure 4 – It’s weird to see WorldRemit is the recommended provider here
Weekly readings

Weekly reading – 3rd July 2021

by MQDuongLeave a Comment on Weekly reading – 3rd July 2021

What I wrote last week

My thoughts on why investing is hard

Business

Credit Suisse 2021 Report on Payments, Processors & Fintech. This deck is long and has tons of information. You can get a lot of pointers out of it, but be aware that many slides have quite old data.

The economics of dollar stores. An excellent post by The Hustle on how dollar stores work. The most interesting things to me are 1/ unit prices on some items at these stores can be higher than those at bigger chains such as Target or Walmart. The absolute prices are lower, but they are also on a much smaller volume. 2/ These stores seem to be more concentrated in poorer neighborhoods. I read somewhere that richer customers don’t mind the stigma of buying stuff at dollar stores. I wonder if that’s still true and how much the trend is a boost to these stores’ business.

How a Beer Giant Manages Through Waves of Covid Around the World. A great story of how a global business uses data analytics to make decisions in the tumultuous pandemic. Even when the AB Inbev’s data team accurately predicted the second surge in India, it did get the previous predictions wrong. Nobody has a crystal ball to see the future. All we can do is to increase the odds with a wealth of data and machine computing.

Mac sales in India tripled after online Apple Store opened. One aspect of Apple’s business that I think should be discussed more is its retail stores and website. The report here credited the presence of Apple’s website for the significant increase in sales. I also learned from the article that to launch own-brand eCommerce sites in India, companies need to source locally 30% of their production. I guess there is a side benefit of expanding supply chain in India, apart from lowering the risk of over-reliance on China.

What does MongoDB do?

An interesting article on the next CEO of Amazon, Andy Sassy. The level of detail orientation described in the article is admirable. I love the concept of the Wheel of Death. People naturally tend to get complacent. Having them on their toes and preserving the unpredictability is a great way to ensure that they perform to the level required.

What I found interesting

Inside Wikipedia’s endless war over the coronavirus lab leak theory. Content moderation is super difficult at scale. Especially when you are widely considered to be neutral and often accurate. And during a global pandemic.

Equipping cargo ships with puffy sails could help Michelin improve a vessel’s fuel efficiency by 20%

The 5 coolest trends in urbanism … in Europe

Stats that may interest you

U.S online grocery sales hit $7 billion in May 2021, just a bit higher than the figure in March 2020, right before Covid

1/3 of U.S grocery sales comes from independent supermarkets

1 out of 3 men in the U.S reported to have fewer than 2 close friends, excluding relatives, according to a survey in May 2021

According to Bain, Covid increased the forecast online sales as % of all grocery sales in the US in 2025 from 8% to 13%

Average Prime Day order in 2021 was $47.14, down from $54.64 and $58.91 in 2020 and 2019 respectively

Amazon Pay Later hit 2 million sign-ups in India

97% of customer auto purchases in the U.S involves online research, but auto eCommerce only makes up 1%

Weekly readings

Weekly reading – 15th May 2021

by MQDuongLeave a Comment on Weekly reading – 15th May 2021

What I wrote last week

App Tracking Transparency & Apple Search Ads

Business

Why DoorDash and Uber Eats Delivery Is Costing You More. The service and delivery fees seem to be bigger than they were before Covid. I am not so sure if that trend is positive to the future of these delivery companies. At some point, it would hurt the relationship with merchants

Walmart is losing its grips on grocery. I don’t really expect Walmart to catch up with Prime soon, but it’s a bit surprising to me that the company is losing its lead in grocery, their bread and butter.

A sensible and good writeup on Epic vs Apple. I may be biased towards Apple as it is my first ever stock, but if you are a reasonable person, you likely won’t look at what Epic did and does, and support them.

Vietnamese startup Nano raised $3 million seed round. I believe this should be one of many fintech startups from Vietnam in the near future.

The Korean Chatroulette-style dating app quietly taking over the world

JPMorgan, Others Plan to Issue Credit Cards to People With No Credit Scores. It’s past time that companies take into account other factors in giving prospects credit cards or not.

What I found interesting

Biggest ISPs paid for 8.5 million fake FCC comments opposing net neutrality

Apple AirTags vs. Tile: The Best Tool for Finding Your Lost Stuff. The current generation of AirTags may have weaknesses and their performance isn’t eye-opening yet. But give it some time and I believe it can be another great segment in addition to AirPods and Apple Watch

Fact-checking Modi’s India. It’s just mind-blowing how the truth can be bent that much so that some people gain so much power.

The Verge has a good article on Federated Learning of Cohorts (FLoC), a new initiative by Google as preparation for life after 3rd party cookies

Jony Ive’s advice to the next generation of designers

Stats that may interest you

Consumer prices increased by 2.6% for 12 months ending March 2021. Perhaps it’s time to be rigorous in saving your money, unless you can increase your income.

App Store stopped more than $1.5 billion in potentially fraudulent transactions in 2020