Tag: YouTube

Weekly readings

Weekly reading – 3rd June 2022

by MQDuongLeave a Comment on Weekly reading – 3rd June 2022

Business

The CEO of YouTube Has a Favorite Video and a Plan to Win Over Anyone Watching TV. File this under the “I guess it helps but I prefer you doing something else” cabinet. Building rapport with key creators is important. So is understanding their needs. I am just not sure that whatever the CEO of YouTube is doing is efficient and worth his valuable. I’d love for him to address the inhumane ads load that free users have to endure on mobile devices. If I were Meta, I’d think about a new brand and service whose sole purpose is to compete hard against YouTube. Consumers like myself are ready for a YouTube alternative that treats us better.

Netflix might ruin password sharing for everyone. The streaming service industry is so interesting and unpredictable that I distrust people who say they have it all figured out. Netflix wants to crack down password sharing to increase revenue. Its competitors are undoubtedly following this development to see if they can copy and make some more money. The problem is that this plan may drive away users (shocking!). Netflix already saw it in a few test markets, but unsurprisingly shrugged it off. Another consequence is that viewers will downgrade plans to Basic or even Ads-supported. There are two complications: 1/ will there be enough revenue to fund content in the future; and 2/ will there be content to keep viewers happy? Lower plans mean lower Average Revenue Per User (ARPU). Netflix needs to make the numbers look good to investors and fund content to keep churn low. The company also needs an existing library. The question is whether the likes of Disney or Warner Bros will license content to Netflix. These IP holders need money, but licensing to the biggest competitor will help Netflix retain users. An extremely delicate situation that even folks with privileged information may not know how to navigate. Therefore, I really can’t wait to see how all of this will unfold in the future.

Streaming services are removing tons of movies and shows — it’s not personal, it’s strictly business. A great complementary piece to the one right above about streaming services

What Costco’s Baskets Reveal About Consumer Finances. All signs are pointing to consumers under pressure and a recession. “ While shoppers still love going to Costco—traffic at its stores rose 4.8% globally and memberships grew 7%—they are walking out with smaller receipts. The average daily transaction declined 4.2% as shoppers bought fewer big-ticket discretionary items. Chief Financial Officer Richard Galanti said on Thursday’s earnings call that sales have shifted from beef to poultry and pork, a trend the company historically sees during recessions. Some are even switching to canned products such as chicken and tuna.”

Other stuff I find interesting

Europe is trying to ditch planes for trains. Here’s how that’s going. “Premature, but potential” is what I’d say. Although the new ban by the French government may have limited impact, this is the harbinger of what is going to happen in Europe. There will be more restrictions on flights, but I think that to make public transportation and trains more attractive to citizens, authorities must work to ensure that these means of transportation offer the same utility as flights. Until then, don’t expect flights to go away

Strong leg muscles may be linked with better outcomes after heart attack, study suggests. Another is added to a plethora of studies that say strength training is recommended for lower heart attack risks, especially among older people.

The Surprising Reason that There Are So Many Thai Restaurants in America. It’s a clever scheme from the Thai government to promote Thai culture and cuisine.

The unsung heroes of the Apple Watch are its hidden buttons. This is the best of Apple. Invisible things that are challenging to manufacture yet make the whole user experience stand out.

Stats

Tap-to-Pay brings additional $65 a month in spend from debit card users in the US, Visa executive reveals at Annual J.P. Morgan’s Global Technology, Media and Communications Conference 2023

According to Morning Brew, the next El Niño will cost the global economy $3 trillion through 2029

9.8 million passengers were screened at airports during Memorial Day weekend, according to the TSA

70% of adults in the US coped well financially in 2022, down from 75% in 2021

Weekly readings

Weekly reading – 26th November 2022

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

What I wrote last week

Attention to detail matters

Business

Welcome to the Ambaniverse. It’s scarcely believable to me how much Mukesh Ambani and his companies touch the life of Indians

($) What Do the Worst (and Best) Airports Look Like? Ask United Airlines. Ever flew with United Airlines to/from Newark and got delayed? This article will share some insights as to why.

The ‘Amazon of Africa’ is reducing staff and cutting premature products in its new era. Amazon relies on its grip over loyal shoppers who subscribe to Prime in order to woo advertisers and merchants. Jumia is doing the opposite. The company claimed that it was marching towards profitability and cutting initiatives that were not contributing to that goal. A Prime-like subscription is likely not profitable, but it remains to be seen if it is wise to go ahead without one. I really look forward to seeing how Jumia will be in two years and their reflection on the decision made today

Tax filing websites have been sending users’ financial information to Facebook. I haven’t used any website listed in the article, but I am pretty angry. The practice of sharing tax data with another party without consent is distasteful and fraudulent. Even if tax-filing websites shield themselves by using the “terms and conditions” page that nobody ever really reads, the government should just outright ban that deceitful practice and prosecute those that don’t safeguard consumer data properly.

($) Disney’s Robert Iger Loomed Over His Successor as CEO, Creating Tensions. I feel like FTX & SBF and Twitter & Musk became some sort of old news when the headlines were all taken over by Disney and Bob Iger. Bob Chapek’s tenure was littered with missteps and investor doubt. I had a serious concern when he decided to jack up prices at the parks. He increased the streaming target significantly, albeit with little experience to show for it. There were also problems with Scarlett Johansson and Florida’s Governor De Santis. The fact that he was let go is not without cause. What surprised everybody is Bob Iger’s return. He was Disney’s CEO for 15 years and repeatedly reneged on his promise to pick a successor multiple times before choosing Chapek. Bob Iger was a legendary CEO when he retired. The man built Disney’s massive IP library, took the company’s name & its properties to new height and delivered blockbuster after blockbuster. But the company he is taking over faces different challenges than when he left. There is no telling that he will succeed this time. Is he a better choice than Chapek? I think so. Does Iger’s return mean that the company is out of the woods? Not necessarily.

The Perks of a High-Documentation, Low-Meeting Work Culture.I am a fan of a culture that favors documentation and writing. First of all, writing fosters deep thinking and sharpens ideas. Second, it can level the playing field for people who that speak the language fluently. For those who don’t write well, I do think it’s an easier fix than to ask non-native speakers to articulate their points naturally. Third, great documentation transfers knowledge seamlessly. No matter who leave or stay, the domain knowledge stays with an organization and gets passed on to the next persons through write-ups, memos or reports. Last but not least, as the article mentioned, meetings have a way of disrupting and lessen the actual work

($) Was This $100 Billion Deal the Worst Merger Ever? A long great read on the AT&T – Time Warner merger that will go down in history as one of the worst mergers and value destructions ever. Several factors contributed to the mess: a legal debacle that took two valuable years, two cultures that never gelled, the cut-throat competition and executives who didn’t have a strategic plan nor execution to realize all the potential value, if there was any.

Other stuff I find interesting

($) North America’s EV Future Hinges on a North Carolina Turtle Pond. “In Kings Mountain, North Carolina, there’s a tree-filled park that provides urbanites from nearby Charlotte some respite in nature. At its center is a tranquil pond, featuring turtles, fish and other wildlife. The sparkling waters, which plunge some 150 feet deep, are the result of decades of accumulated rainfall in a defunct lithium mine. By contrast, China dominates the global supply chain for EV batteries, boasting 79% of the world’s lithium-ion battery manufacturing capacity, versus just 5.5% for the US.“

Megalopolis: how coastal west Africa will shape the coming century. Visiting Africa and the stretch described here is a dream that I want to realize in the next 10-15 years. “By the end of the century, Africa will be home to 40% of the world’s population – and nowhere is this breakneck-pace development happening faster than this 600-mile stretch between Abidjan and Lagos. It is a stretch of coastal west Africa that begins in the west with Abidjan, the economic capital of Ivory Coast, and extends 600 miles east – passing through the countries of Ghana, Togo and Benin – before finally arriving at Lagos. Recently, this has come to be seen by many experts as the world’s most rapidly urbanising region, a “megalopolis” in the making – that is, a large and densely clustered group of metropolitan centres. When its population surpassed 10 million people in the 1950s, the New York metropolitan area became the anchor of one of the first urban zones to be described this way – a region of almost continuous dense habitation that stretches 400 miles from Washington DC to Boston“

A very handy website on industrial tourism in Japan

The truffle industry is a big scam. Not just truffle oil, everything. There are three biggest takeaways for me: 1/ the truffle oil is a fraud; 2/ depending on the type of truffle and when it can be harvested, out-of-season truffle is also a fraud because it cannot be preserved for long; 3/ there are many types of truffles and some can be much more expensive than others

Stats

e-bike sales in Finland (by units) in 2022 increased 53% year over year

Alexa is reportedly on track to lose $10 billion this year

Brands pay young YouTubers a lot of money for product placements, from $75,000 to $300,000

Weekly readings

Weekly reading – 24th September 2022

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

Business

The small town that saved its only grocery store — by buying it. A fascinating look into grocery stores in rural areas and the monumental challenges that these stores have to face.

Why Toyota – the world’s largest automaker – isn’t all-in on electric vehicles. In my opinion, given the lack of infrastructure and adoption of electric vehicles at the moment, prudence by Toyota totally makes sense. Their conservative stance doesn’t necessarily mean that they won’t invest when the right time comes. Of course, Toyota’s bet could put them on the back foot, but who is to say that aggressive investments by Toyota’s competitors are without risks and totally justified? Some other manufacturers vowed to have all EVs in 10 years, but these vows aren’t binding in any sense. As a result, what matters to shareholders is what is best for the business, not meaningless promises. If being prudent benefits shareholders, Toyota’s management should stick to their guns.

Siting bank branches. An interesting post on bank branches. To be honest, as someone who works in the banking industry, I learned something new.

($) Professor Behind $12 Billion Empire Fuels China’s Tech Rise. “Li was among the first Chinese to study in the US before returning to teach in Hong Kong’s pre-eminent technology university. From there, he’s groomed a generation of entrepreneurs and set up an incubation academy, funding or nurturing promising players in robotics and artificial intelligence valued at almost $12 billion.“

Made on YouTube: supporting the next wave of creative entrepreneurs. YouTube attracts digital creators with new initiatives, including a revenue-share scheme and more access to a music catalog to create long-form videos.

dunnhumby Retailer Preference Index: Special Inflation Edition 2022. This RPI score measures how well retailers meet consumer needs and strengthen the emotional bond with shoppers. My favorite place to shop, Aldi, is the 2nd best retailer (I wrote about Aldi before), while Trader’s Joe and Lidl follow closely behind. If I were among the executives at Walmart, I would not be pleased when reading this report. Walmart prides itself at a low price retailer, but it came in at 16th and 17th place in this ranking. It’s worth noting that the bond forged during a difficult time like right now should last for a long time.

($) The Sneaky Genius of Apple’s AirPods Empire. “Apple doesn’t disclose sales of its headphones—its quarterly filings lump AirPods in with its watches, home speakers, and other accessories—but outside analysts say it sold 120 million or so pairs in 2021. IDC and Bloomberg Intelligence estimates suggest that AirPods account for roughly half of sales of what Apple calls “Wearables, Home and Accessories,” its fastest- growing line of business. From 2016 to 2021, sales in this category rose by 245%, to $38 billion. Piper Sandler Cos., the investment bank, estimates that 3 in 4 US teens own AirPods. Apple has set the standard for wireless headphones and turned a free pack-in accessory into a $200 must-buy. Of course, AirPods aren’t really a standalone product. They’re an extension of Cook’s larger project: a mutually dependent ecosystem of hardware, software, and services that keeps customers spending more all the time“.

Other stuff I found interesting

Guide to F1. A cool website that will ease beginners into the world of F1 with an overview of the sport’s history, cheat sheet and explanations on key terminologies.

We Spoke With the Last Person Standing in the Floppy Disk Business. The world is such a fascination because of people like him.

I enjoy John Gruber’s writing, especially when it comes to Apple. His latest review on iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Pro is masterful.

How Europe Stumbled Into an Energy Catastrophe. “They’re burning coal like they never have in Germany. So — climate what? I mean, does Germany actually care about climate change? If it cared about climate change, I guess Germans would all shiver instead of burning coal. Climate change is going to happen over multiple decades in a century. The war is here. The war is before us. There’s no such thing as the unicorn buffet where we have no trade-offs and every decision is a good one. It’s unthinkable that Germany would still be debating whether they should keep the nuclear power plants on. It’s unthinkable that Germany would be debating whether or not to go turn back on the ones they just turned off. And we keep saying, How much pain do you need to suffer before you reacquaint yourself with reality?“

Stats

U.S. retail sales expected to grow 7.1%* this holiday season

Transactions on Zelle exceeded the 5-billion mark

Visa Tap-to-Pay Hits 1 Billion Transit Transactions

Amazon Prime averaged 13 million viewers for its debut live stream of “Thursday Night Football,” 

Source: Bloomberg

Weekly readings

Weekly reading – 23rd July 2022

by MQDuongLeave a Comment on Weekly reading – 23rd July 2022

What I wrote last week

Three things a company can to hire great new entry-level staff and integrate them successfully

Business Unlimited Ultimate+ For Iphone

Business

Consumer Trends 2022: Mid-Year Update. An interesting study on consumer behavior by Coefficient Capital. One thing that stood out as terrifying to me is that 39% of the surveyed folks sayed they’d vote for Donald Trump if he runs for President in 2024

($) 71 Cities and Towns Are Paying Tech Workers to Abandon Silicon Valley. It’s Working. Local economies need bodies, tax revenue, consumption and entrepreneurship. Without these incentive programs, smaller cities have little chance to stand out and be the next destination for highly skilled workers. I really hope that somebody will conduct a wide range study on how effective such programs are.

From $25 billion to $167 million: How a major crypto lender collapsed and dragged many investors down with it. You live by the hype, you die when it dies. A rude reckoning for crypto traders

($) CFPB to Push Banks to Cover More Payment-Services Scams. Up to now, banks only have to repay the money that customers lost in fraudulently induced transactions. If the report is true, banks will soon have to provide more protection for consumers, investigate more transactions and potentially have to repay the money lost in scams that were even authorized by the end users. I welcome the proposal. Fraud is the number one concern when it comes to real time payment. Zelle, to the industry insiders, is littered with frauds. Having the regulatory push from the CFPB will force major banks to take more actions to protect the end users. On the flip side, more oversight may curtail the investment and interest in real time payment from financial institutions. But I think it’s a risk worth taking.

Target puts the squeeze on suppliers after inventories pile up. Relying on major retailers boosts a supplier’s scale tremendously, but also means that an abrupt change can seriously hurt the supplier’s margin. Dealing with expensive excessive inventory, retail giants like Target or Walmart pressures their suppliers to hold what they previously committed to take on and eat the cost. These suppliers are likely to swallow this bitter pill since a lot of future business is on the line here

Lessons from Germany’s Midsize Giants. A great collection of great mid-size companies from Germany that have the same formula to success as Aldi. I believe you get more value from reading this article and studying these companies than from a lot of business strategy textbooks at school

Other stuff I find interesting

The 2022 13-Inch MacBook Air. John Gruber’s review is excellent, as usual. I have to admit that it nudges me towards buying one later this year

($) Afghan Economy Crumbles Since Taliban Takeover. The economy collapsed. Demand evaporated. Financial support from other countries was cut off. 90% of the citizens don’t eat sufficiently while half of the population face acute hunger. The Talibans do not know how to run the country. What a catastrophe!

($) MBS’s $500 Billion Desert Dream Just Keeps Getting Weirder. “MBS, as he’s known abroad, was in the early stages of one of the largest and most difficult construction projects in history, which involves turning an expanse of desert the size of Belgium into a high-tech city-region called Neom. Starting with a budget of $500 billion, MBS bills Neom as a showpiece that will transform Saudi Arabia’s economy and serve as a testbed for technologies that could revolutionize daily life.” As I read this article, I couldn’t help but feel sad. The amount of money and resources poured into this grandiose project fueled by the ambition, if not delusion, of one powerful man could have helped a lot of unfortunate people around the world.

Case Study 8: How Hertz Paid Accenture $32 Million for a Website That Never Went Live. It’s mind-blowing that Accenture couldn’t even deliver the responsive design and decent security features after receiving a lot of money from Hertz. I don’t know how complicated Hertz wanted their website and mobile application to be nor do I know how the office politics involved is. But based on the description of the requested elements, I have a feeling that a $2 million to a Vietnamese ads agency would get the job done.

U.S. Wind Energy Is (Finally) Venturing Offshore. “Capturing offshore wind in the U.S. has long been an uphill battle, with various stumbling blocks in the terrain. Objections from fisheries, skepticism from conservationists and tenuous support from tourism have all stalled development in the past decade. That is, until May of 2021, when the U.S. Department of the Interior approved construction of a sprawling wind facility several miles off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts.”

Stats

In 2021, venture capitalists invested $14.8 billion into startups in Latin America. The nearly $15 billion was more than the previous six years of venture investment combined

Forests Now Cover 2% of Iceland, a 6-fold increase since the 1990s

Since 2012, the SEC has awarded $1.3 billion to 278 whistleblowers

63% of African American students in K-12 in San Francisco are chronically absent, compared to 46% Latinx, 20% White and 8.4% Asian

YouTube has 5,500 channels in the US with more than 1 million subscribers in 2021

Source: Sensor Tower
Weekly readings

Weekly reading – 11th December 2021

by MQDuongLeave a Comment on Weekly reading – 11th December 2021

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

Weekly readings

Weekly reading – 23rd October 2021

by MQDuongLeave a Comment on Weekly reading – 23rd October 2021

What I wrote last week

PayPal in talks to buy Pinterest

Book review: Richer, Wiser Happier: How The World’s Greatest Investors Win In Markets & Life

Good reads on Business

Jokr and Personalized Instant Commerce. The article lays out useful data and information on Instant Commerce, especially Jokr. However, I am still a bit unsure about the unit economics of these delivery services. Last-mile delivery is hard and expensive, especially at scale. The consumer stickiness is naturally low and requires constant incentives to nurture. Competitors are everywhere. Plus, the good-old brick-and-mortar alternatives generally offer sufficient value and people, like myself, like to go out once in a while for some fresh air.

Netflix Loses Its Glow as Critics Target Chappelle Special. Netflix has started to encounter what the likes of Facebook and Twitter have for years: content moderation. The company can’t please everyone; so in this case, it’s natural that one or two stakeholders are disappointed with the Dave Chappelle show. The management team believes that the show brings net benefits to Netflix and acted accordingly. Agree with them or not, you should see where they are coming from. On the other hand, some employees reserve their right to disagree with that decision and be disappointed. That happens to even within families, let alone strangers that merely work at the same place. What remains to be seen to me are 1/ how would this affect staff turnover and talent management at Netflix; 2/ how would Netflix users think about the show?

Inside TSMC, the Taiwanese chipmaking giant that’s building a new plant in Phoenix. “TSMC makes key components for everything from cellphones to F-35 fighter jets to NASA’s Perseverance Rover mission to Mars. Earlier this month, it announced plans for a new factory in Japan, where it will produce chips with older technologies, for things like household devices and certain car components. TSMC is also Apple’s exclusive provider of the most advanced chips inside every iPhone currently on the market and most Mac computers. TSMC alone was responsible for 24% of the world’s semiconductor output in 2020, up from 21% in 2019, according to the company. When it comes to the most advanced chips used in the latest iPhones, supercomputers and automotive AI, TSMC is responsible for 92% of production while Samsung is responsible for the other 8%, according to research group Capital Economics. ”

How YouTube Makes Sure Its Hitmakers Don’t Stumble. YouTube spends tens of thousands of dollars on the top YouTubers to grow their content and ecosystem. Their in-house digital agency also offers guidance and consulting services to these personalities so that they can sustain attractive videos and high viewership. This kind of support, along with YouTube or its parent company’s resources, makes it difficult for other competitors to match.

‘Squid Game’ success shines a light on how cheap it is to make TV shows outside the U.S. “The total cost of making “Squid Game” was just $21.4 million. Episodes of Disney+’s Marvel shows, such as “WandaVision” or “The Falcon,” cost Disney $25 million per episode — more than all nine episodes of “Squid Game”“. I’d also prefer local characters being played by true locals to by Americans.

Is Best Buy undermining its storybook turnaround? I don’t think it’s a good idea to mess with a formula that works. Especially, that formula is around customer services and satisfaction. If I were a Best Buy shareholder, I’d send the CEO and the Management Team this article with a lot of questions.

Business Breakdown episode on Uber. If you are interested in gig economy and especially Uber as a business, have a listen. Whether you are a bull or a bear, I think it’ll be worth your time

How Many Users Does Facebook Have? The Company Struggles to Figure It Out. “A separate memo from May said that the number of U.S. Facebook users who are in their 20s and active at least once a month often exceeds the total population of Americans their age. “This brings out an elephant in the room: SUMA,” the memo’s author wrote, using an internal abbreviation for “Single User Multiple Accounts.” The author added that the issue could render Facebook’s ratio of users active each day “less trustable. Facebook said in its most recent quarterly securities filings that it estimates 11% of its monthly active users world-wide—which totaled 2.9 billion for its flagship platform in the second quarter—are duplicate accounts, with developing markets accounting for a higher proportion of them than developed ones.”

Other interesting stuff

Your Guide to the Third-Party Cookie. A very useful primer on the key factor in the digital advertising world. I have been on both sides of this issue. As a marketer, I can see why companies want to get as much data as possible to hone their targeting and make the best use of their ads dollars. On the other hand, as a consumer, I absolutely hate the feeling that somebody follows me everywhere across the Web. Privacy has been on the rise and will continue to be. iOS users now have a choice to voice their opinion on the matter with ATT. I don’t know how this all will shake out, but I would think that marketers would do well if they pivoted from 3rd party tracking.

Belgium’s shift from nuclear under fire as gas price surge strains Europe. It is baffling to me that countries are moving away from nuclear energy for gas-based power.

The Greek region too remote for maps

New Viking artifacts may mean that Christopher Columbus might not be the first one to discover the America continent. I guess it’s time to keep the holiday yet change the freaking name

Stats

Gas bills this winter can be at least 30% higher than last year

Weekly readings

Weekly reading – 30th January 2021

by MQDuongLeave a Comment on Weekly reading – 30th January 2021

What I wrote last week

What I like about Apple Fitness+

Business

An excellent write-up on the state of news outlets or local journalism in America. It’s astounding that half of the local news outlets are now owned by private equity, hedge funds or other investment firms

SoftBank’s plan to sell Arm to NVIDIA is hitting antitrust wall around the world

Brexit has major implications. Whether the net benefits are positive or not remains to be seen, but this new development doesn’t seem to benefit consumers: Mastercard is hiking fees

AirBnb conducted a new survey that said: One in five want their destination to be within driving distance of home. Not a very good sign for airlines

N26 got 7 million customers

Apple published a document that outlines its imminent privacy policies

Some notable data from a letter from YouTube CEO

Over the last three years, we’ve paid more than $30 billion to creators, artists, and media companies.

YouTube Gaming had 100 billion hours of content in 2020

Our Music and Premium Subscriptions have been growing quickly, reaching more than 30 million paid Members in the third quarter of last year.

Source: YouTube

Technology

A glimpse into JPMorgan Chase’s $12 billion annual tech budget. There are quite some interesting features that the interviewee shared

CB Insights has a write-up on 40 companies that are working on autonomous vehicles

A long but great list of big ideas from ARK

What I found interesting

How homogeneous is Japan

What does the night sky look like on Mars?

A French-Vietnamese woman is fighting for justice for victims of war crimes. It’s crazy that US and Korean veterans received compensations from chemical companies because their products which were used in the Vietnam War had life-altering effects. Yet, Vietnamese victims have not received any.

What I find is that it is often these kinds of multiple small mispriced insights that overtime compound to form a business which is very defensible and very difficult to replicate. The discovery of those multiple small insights really requires a bottom-up organic idiosyncratic investment process.

Source: Interview with Mark Walker from Tollymore Investment Partners
Weekly readings

Weekly readings – 7th August 2020

by MQDuongLeave a Comment on Weekly readings – 7th August 2020

What I wrote last week

Uber’s latest quarter

Apple’s acquisition of this promising fintech startup from Canada

Business

Inside Netflix’s Quest to Become a Global TV Giant

US citizens increasingly moved to Canada through its Express Entry program

Content creators on YouTube that no longer rely on advertising dollars on the platform grew 40% between Jan and May 2020

Why Microsoft wants Tiktok

A sensible piece on Amazon, its private label and the antitrust issue that it has to deal with

Eugene Wei’s latest essay is on TikTok and it’s good

ARK’s latest white paper on SaaS

How Tim Cook has molded Apple into his own version, not Steve Jobs’

Technology

Apple secured a new patent that could equip Apple Watch with odor sensor technology

What’s the Big Deal About Revit? Understanding the Role of Autodesk Revit in Architecture, Engineering, and Construction

Other stuff that I think is interesting

Inside look at CloudKitchens

Bill Gates’ conversation on Covid-19

Weekly readings

Weekly readings – 22nd June 2019

by MQDuongLeave a Comment on Weekly readings – 22nd June 2019

“Amazon’s Choice” Does Not Necessarily Mean A Product Is Good. Amazon’s Choice is a popular trigger to shoppers about a product’s quality and popularity. This piece sheds some light on the feature.

Algorithms Won’t Fix What’s Wrong With YouTube.

How a janitor at Frito-Lay invented Flamin’ Hot Cheetos. An amazing story about the VP of PepsiCo from a janitor to a C-Suite executive of a world class corporation. “I do have a Ph.D.,” he responded. “I’ve been poor, hungry and determined.”

This psychologist explains why people confess to crimes they didn’t commit

IAB Podcast Ad Revenue Study: An Analysis of the Largest Players in the Podcasting Industry

Reuters Institute Digital News Report 2019. A very interesting study on consumption of digital news across countries

Tesla, Facing Setbacks and Skeptics, Tries to Get Back on Course. A nice overview of Tesla’s situation

Why Google’s Advertising Dominance Is Drawing Antitrust Scrutiny

The ambitious plan behind Facebook’s cryptocurrency, Libra. A quick overview of Libra, if you don’t have time to read the supporting documents released by Libra Org.

Scooter Breakdowns Weigh on Lime