Hi All,
Hope you all are well and are not the ones protesting. I intellectually just cannot get over the protests and why people do not understand the severity of the risks but then I came across this statement in an article. People obviously DO NOT GET IT. SMH.Â
Last week, Dr. Phil told Foxâs Laura Ingraham that we should open up the country again, noting, wrongly, that âthree hundred and sixty thousand people die each year âfrom swimming pools â but we donât shut the country down for that.â In response, Taleb tweeted, âDrowning in swimming pools is extremely contagious and multiplicative.â)
Cigarette companies are required by law in certain countries to put warning labels on their products (and gory photos as well). If people knew how the virus ravages the system (and in so many ways) maybe they will realize the seriousness of this disease?
From Scott Galloway on "Corona Corps" is probably a good idea for our times. Stay safe. Stay healthy!Â
Facebook and Reliance
Let's forget Corona for a split second here. Facebook Invests $5.7 Billion in India's Jio Platforms
Indiaâs largest mobile internet carrier. This is big news:Â
From the article:Â
India is a special country for us. Over the years, Facebook has invested in India to connect people and help businesses launch and grow.
Remember this isnât FBâs first foray into india. Over the years, Facebook has tried to buy its way into India completely ignoring neutrality. That didnât work and in retrospect that might have been a good thing (for Facebook purely from a monetization stand ONLY since ads donât monetize very well and even if they do they are much lower in terms of how much they make. But then Facebook doesnât want to lose out on a tech friendly market, the 2nd largest after China, which by the way they canât operate in.
So FB spends $5.7B to:Â
Access ~400MM Indian customers (pre-seeded facebook apps + marketplace apps on the phone)
Experiment with WhatsApp monetization via marketplace/commerce
Experiment with âSuper-appsâ similar to what the Chinese tech companies such as WeChat have done - payments, delivery services, micro monetization via articles, content etc
Retry WhatApp payments (has run into regulatory roadblocks) since at this point it has business clout which does buy political clout. They have only spent ~60MM lobbying in America over the past 6 years. And this quarter in the US
The official line is that â Jio Platforms, Reliance Retail Limited and WhatsApp have also entered into a commercial partnership agreement to push JioMart, Reliance Retailâs small business commerce platform, on WhatsApp. JioMart brings small merchants and kirana shops (what are Kiranaâs?) to the Internetâ and the pilots have already started.Â
All this in a week. Either that was superfast or this was pre-planned. My money is on the latter!Â
The other interesting point is of course of that Amazon has partnered with thousands of Kirana stores so the commerce war in India will be fought by Walmart (Flipkart), Amazon (amazon.in), Facebook (Reliance + Jio)
BigTech is starting to rule the worldâs largest democracy
Partnerships in general fail; lets see how this ones goesÂ
Thoughts on government & technology
The whole recent fiasco on unemployment systems using COBOL shows that we have outdated systems. Why did this happen? Some perfectly capable (let's assume here) IT person was told âWe don't have money to upgrade thisâ. Even if we overhaul this in 2020, not if (and history has shown if isn't necessary) but rather when this happens again wonât the same problem exist? I mean what's gonna change? Programming languages changes, devices change. Everything changes. The core problem here of course if governmental income. Either privatise this infrastructure (cloud based), centralize the laws so that all states can use the same infrastructure (not true today). There is never enough money because of the laws favoring rich people. Solve that first. Then and only then it makes sense to solve this problem
COVID 19 this week
From the visual capitalist . The highest risk jobs. Take a guess before you look:Â
The Front Line: Visualizing the Occupations with the Highest COVID-19 Risk
The first modern pandemic | Bill Gates was a great read on the current status and the gaps in our learning. Really read this. Clear, crisp articulation.Â
Conspiracy theories and covidiots
This article made me think about how the internet enables quirkiness. Even if you are the lunatic village idiot that everyone ignores in your village, other villages have idiots too and the internet has made the transactional cost of putting all the idiots together so small compared to any time in the past. You can needless to say replace idiots with any other noun here. They say that little knowledge is a dangerous thing and in addition to the aforementioned âidiotsâ otherwise smart but well meaning people spread rumours.Â
Charlie Munger has a principal where he does not hire anyone who âthinksâ they know everything. Stick to your competency when you know nothing about the area. My use of the word âidiotâ was for illustration purposes only. No harm intended but see the below from an article : Yep Bill Gates is the one behind this đđđ and he used 5g to create the virus.Â
Conspiracy theorists have also connected the 5G narrative with the claim that Bill Gates might be behind the virus, which is currently the most popular Covid-19 conspiracy theory online, according to Zignal Labs. The theory posits that Bill Gates not only caused the outbreak but also, somehow, used 5G to do it.
The flurry of celebrities amplifying the conspiracy theory continued. Rapper Wiz Khalifa tweeted on April 3: âCorona? 5g? Or both?â That same day, actor Woody Harrelson posted a video about the theory on Instagram, where he has more than 2 million followers (these posts have since been deleted). British rapper M.I.A., boxer Amir Khan, actor John Cusack, music producer Teddy Riley, and TV personality Amanda Holden all shared thoughts about the conspiracy with their millions of followers around this time.
Mary Meeker's slide deck on the impact of COVID-19
The below table was enlightening but I recommend reading this in its entirety. Great insights (and right on the money for what one would expect from Mary Meeker)
As I think more about grocery food delivery, I think in the short run (assuming long run is drones) the company that survives longer term (trend or no trend) is the company that treats people fairly. For California of course AB5 jeopardizes flexibility but notwithstanding that and assuming that its possible to make a fair wage without multihoming the company that treats workers fairly will win.
And how Fintech is helping: 23 Fintech Companies Aiding in Coronavirus Relief
This weekâs dozen
Step up your imagination game : We Need Imagination Now More Than Ever
Seeking Alpha using Big Data
Seeking alpha then lies in algorithmic superiority. Buying or gathering data is also hard needless to say but on the assumption that all data is purchasable this means that the winner has to have very deep pockets (to buy or collect or own that data) which is what might give large existing investment firms an edge. This advantage is being chipped away and data in and of itself is not going to be a long term advantage but rather become fungible. This means that algorithmic superiority will give a trading company(or robo advisory) an edge. But how long before it becomes table stakes and companies have to search for the next big thing : Will 'Big Data' Restore Active Managers' Mojo?
How to tell if you have empowered engineers or not : The Most Important Thing
Empowerment of an engineer means that you provide the engineers with the problem to solve, and the strategic context, and they are able to leverage technology to figure out the best solution to the problem.
An easy way to tell whether you have empowered engineers or not, is if the first time your engineers see a product idea is at sprint planning, you are clearly a feature team, and your engineers are not empowered in any meaningful sense.
The New Rules of Growth vs. Profitability
Some of this applies to all all times I think. Finding acq. channels that work for example is a critical part of growth and while the dynamics change it is still a continuous job
The one thing that came to mind is that channels that are cheaper now can beef up LTV/CAC and in reality unit economics may not work out once growth returns (especially if your channels are ones that are used by marketing spend temporarily halted due to the pandemic)
Charlie Munger on the Value of Thinking Backward and Forward
Pricing and quality
And Veblen goods too for the same reason. How do you know how valuable a brand is? I also think what is interesting is how rarity(or false scarcity) can increase prices. Diamonds for example can be manufactured but a natural diamond commands a higher price : How Raising Prices Can Increase Sales
Running : Long story short, its not a physical issue
To Run My Best Marathon at Age 44, I Had to Outrun My Past
But there's another theory, put forward by a sports physiologist named Tim Noakes. As he puts it, in what he calls the central governor model, part of the reason we slow is because our brain is telling our body to stop because it's scared. It doesn't want you to overheat or develop a stress fracture in your shin, so it preemptively hits the brakes. If Noakes' theory is right, it implies a mind-body dilemma. We all can go faster. We just have to persuade our brains not to start the subconscious shutdown process right away. But the only thing we can use to trick our brain is our brain. Training becomes a game of hide-and-seek with oneself. When I think back to that day on the Moses Brown track, I wonder whether I could have run as fast had I known my early pace. If I'd realized how fast I was going, my brain might have shut down.
Circle of competence- focus on your strong points. Know them well and know what you should avoid : Understanding your Circle of Competence: How Warren Buffett Avoids Problems
You have to figure out what your own aptitudes are. If you play games where other people have the aptitudes and you donât, youâre going to lose. And thatâs as close to certain as any prediction that you can make. You have to figure out where youâve got an edge. And youâve got to play within your own circle of competence.
A look through 50 of mankind's greatest inventions : The 50 Greatest Breakthroughs Since the Wheel. I spent 10-15 minutes on trying to choose one and I couldnât!Â
Burn multiples - always loved the various financial ratios that are used to compare companies. You can further break this down by your major costs (payroll) and determine revenue per employee : The Burn Multiple - Craft Ventures
Why Southwest Hedges fuel and some other cool insights on the airline industry: How Airlines Explain the Economy
For low-cost carriers like Southwest, it makes more sense to hedge fuel: the âlowâ part of their cost structure comes from flying planes more frequently and offering fewer frills, both of which reduce operating costs per mile flown. But fuel costs per mile flown are harder to nudge (all else being equal, buying cheap planes means buying fuel-inefficient ones), so fuel is a larger component of the cost structure for low-cost carriers.
Silicon valley growth is maturing ...what is next for these companies and future founders? When Tailwinds Vanish
What are the practical consequences of the Internetâs shift towards maturation? We can look through financial and cultural lenses to better understand the implications. Weâll see an acceleration of zero-sum games between Internet startups and incumbents. A shift from R&D to SG&A will operationalize Silicon Valley, leaving room for new financial infrastructure. VCs will need to take risks on vision, not numbers. And the founders and operators of tomorrow wonât look like those of the past 20 years.
Thanks for reading. Stay safe and be well!