Kevin Xu of Interconnected wrote an interesting analysis post about Why Is Facebook Not in the Cloud Business[1] its worth a read, he points out that they have the tech for it but they don't seem interested and even if they were the hard part isn't necessarily the technical aspect its building the human part
>>"The tougher part is perhaps not technical, but human. Facebook will have to build out an enterprise sales and support team that is culturally and operationally very different from running an ad-supported social network. Google, also a primarily ad-supported company, suffered from this “identity crisis” and is still trying to catch up to AWS and Azure, despite offering what many believe is a superior technical product."
He also points out they also have a trust deficient due to all the privacy and misinformation scandals.
“When do you think people die? When they are shot through the heart by the bullet of a pistol?
No. When they are ravaged by an incurable disease?
No. When they drink a soup made from a poisonous mushroom!? No! It’s when… they are forgotten.”
Here is a story of a man who collected cans and bottles for cash and invested the money he got in the stock market, he died a millionaire.
"Curt Degerman, known to many as "Tin Can Curt," Degerman spent nearly 30 years roaming the streets of Skelleftea in northern Sweden collecting tin cans and bottles for cash. Those who passed him by simply assumed he was another ordinary street bum.
But to the surpise of many, when Degerman died in 2008, he left more than $1.4 million to his cousin. In between collecting cans, Degerman spent a lot of time in his local library reading business papers and studying the stock market. "
He knew stocks inside and out," said his cousin.
By immersing himself in an education of thrift and smart investing, Degerman used his tin-can earnings to purchase mutual funds. He bought 124 gold bars and also expanded his cash with a savings account. By riding a bicycle and not having a mortgage on his house, his savings were made even easier.
But in 2008, Degerman died of a heart attack, leaving his entire estate to a cousin who had visited him regularly during his last days. He died a millionaire."
"If Edison had a needle to find in a haystack, he would proceed at once... until he found the object of his research. I was sorry witness of such doings, knowing that a little theory and calculations would have saved him 90 percent of his labor."
Here is a YT video of Lars Doucet(the guest author of this newsletter post) discussing Georgism, Lars is a video game designer and developer by profession.
Here is two interesting articles from The Economist where they analyse the success of Hamilton[1] and where they see if you could have predicted the success of Hamilton[2] and here is a in depth post on the data and methodology of the model they created and used[3]
Off Topic but I finished my last exam today and I wanted to start watching Gundam. I wanted to know if you have any recommendations for which Gundam series I should start with first as someones who likes anime but has never watched Gundam.
Here is a insightful blog post from Erik Bernhardsson on Business secrets from terrible people[1] where he writes about management lessons from the Taliban, Theranos, Al-Qaeda and The Black Kings a crack-dealing gang in Chicago.
And here is an interesting article from the Economist on management lessons from Mexico’s drug lords[2]
The Asianometry newsletter wrote a really insightful newsletter about the US Government's Semiconductor Chip Buying Problem[1] (He also has Youtube video[2] you can watch on the same newsletter)
In the newsletter and video he talks about the US's Trusted Foundry Program and the different pitfalls and challenges that came with the program.
After the 2011 Japan earthquake automakers ran into a the same problem, they ran out of a pigment called Xirallic made by Merck
>After the earthquake, automakers worldwide were forced to stop making cars of certain colors because they couldn't get the aluminum-flaked Xirallic pigment that makes the paint sparkle. Merck was making the pigment at only one plant worldwide -- its Onahama plant in the quake zone -- and kept significant stocks of the product only at the same factory. It took months to restart the plant and resume deliveries.[1]
The Verge did a really good profile of the perils of just-in-time manufacturing in respect to Apple that highlights how highly efficient JIT in reducing costs but that it ultimately leads to more fragile supply chains.[2]
>Just-in-time manufacturing is highly efficient, but it’s not resilient.This style of manufacturing cuts costs — but it also means that if the supply chain is disrupted, there will be shortages.[2]
I really like this insight
>To make a more resilient system, a lot of companies may have to rethink just-in-time manufacturing. Resilience doesn’t show up as clearly on balance sheets as cost reduction, but it’s crucial for surviving disruptive events. Lowering costs by creating economies of scale and volume looks good most of the time, but once there’s a failure, companies don’t have many options.[2]
>In the Soviet Union, the first production of feed protein from hydrocarbons took place in the 1970s. In total, the country built 12 plants with a designed production performance of around 1 million tonnes per year. This was close to 70% of the world’s bioprotein production at that time. The importance of the bioprotein industry in the country was comparable with that of the nuclear industry, since it allowed the Soviet Union to be self-sufficient in feedstuffs.[1]
According to the article[1] the paprin caused health issues for the animals fed on it and health problems for the people who ate the the meat obtained from the animals.
>Paprin had a devastating impact on animal health. This product disturbed the hormonal and water balance, causing the formation of oedema all over the animals’ bodies, the Russian Business Consulting agency reported, citing research by the Bashkiria State University. Meat obtained from these animals was causing flare-ups of chronic diseases in consumers. “Meat obtained from animals fed with Paprin contained an accumulation of abnormal amino acids that were incorporated into the membranes of nerve cells, thus disrupting the process of conducting a normal nerve impulse,” said Raisa Bashirova, senior researcher at Bashkiria State University. She added that it was even dangerous for humans to work with Paprin: “The workers at the plants and local residents were developing diseases such as thrush and bronchial asthma.”