Curated Commons // Edition 14
Thank you for subscribing and welcome to the Fourteenth edition of Curated Commons. Let’s dive right in.
Today in capitalism gone wrong
An American company illegally sold enough chemical ingredients for Mexican narco gangs to make $3.2 billion worth of methamphetamine. For that, it paid a fine of just $1.3 million.
Aiding and abetting the distribution of just 50 grams of meth brings a mandatory federal sentence of at least 10 years in prison. More than two million times the 50-gram threshold could be made with the MMA sales covered by Taminco’s sentencing agreement. No one connected to the case would spend a day behind bars.
You can’t make this up! Real estate developers in the US are paying homeless people to safeguard properties they acquired during the housing crisis - https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/12/07/using-the-homeless-to-guard-empty-houses
This is the kind of capitalism I love though! Never lose an opportunity to make $$$ from misinformation peddlers!
Virus ate the belt industry
The headline says it all - “Nobody needs a belt when they’re not wearing pants”
https://qz.com/1937289/covid-19-has-been-terrible-for-belt-sales/
On the other hand, the pandemic also gave a shot-in-the-arm for companies providing automation services. For eg: Ocado Solutions. Good interview with the CEO here.
How has Ocado Retail dealt with the huge increase in demand? Did it make it harder for you to scale up quickly by having to install new robots rather than just hire a bunch of new people?
If you look at the data, Ocado Retail has grown sales over the period by close to 50%. Considering some people said "you're capacity-constrained, you can't grow," that's quite a lot of growth.
Probably the even more important fact that we reported was the EBITDA contribution of the U.K. business was up 87%. And that's critically important, because that demonstrates that the model, as you scale it, has a powerful conversion-to-profit rate.
Science, FTW
The Oxford team behind the Coronavirus vaccine is now apparently close to a vaccine for Malaria. More power to them!
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/health/oxford-coronavirus-vaccine-malaria-jab-b175068.html
Preparing financial returns for…algorithms
The audience for financial reports is increasingly bots and algorithms that are scanning them to use as an input to investment recommendations. That means companies now need to prep their returns to guide these bots in the direction they want.
https://www.nber.org/digest-202012/corporate-reporting-era-artificial-intelligence
This reminded me of that famous tip from a recruiter - have a variety of keywords on your CV that might be picked by an automated system, but in white font!
Lab meat is here
Singapore has approved the sale of lab-grown meat. Fascinating to see the growth of artificial meat startups. Whether it’s about being kinder on the environment, or cruelty/drug-free meat, the options are increasing by the day.
Something similar is swimming in the seas. Fishless fish are here. Researchers are working on “healthy, plant-based, imitation tuna, crab, and shrimp that look and taste like the real thing”. Good long read.
https://www.outsideonline.com/2419099/plant-based-fish-seafood-good-catch
Millionaire with a gambling and helping bug!
This is a fascinating profile of a Cambodian American refugee who became a millionaire, blew it all twice over, helped a whole ton of people and came around. A beautiful story with a dash of being human.
https://www.bbc.com/news/stories-54546427
Japan, and the art of running businesses for centuries
Japan apparently has over 140 companies that have existed for over 500 years! By focusing not on short-term market economics principles, these businesses continue to thrive, through war or pandemic. Good read.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/02/business/japan-old-companies.html
From deep space to middle of nowhere
Space scientists from Japan are about to (or would have, by the time this newsletter reaches you) land bits of an asteroid through Hayabusa2, a robotic space probe launched by JAXA, Japan’s space agency, in 2014. They face a more immediate challenge though - traversing deep space is one thing, but searching for a small capsule in the middle of nowhere in Australia is quite another!
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/05/science/japan-asteroid-hayabusa2-woomera.html
Mexican drug cartels are using TikTok for recruitment
Social networks are not just for brands doing trying to get viral and drive engagement. Organized criminal gangs are apparently now using them as well. Interesting piece in the NYT on how Mexican drug cartels are using TikTok and flooding it with content on guns, riches and spoils of the drug wars to attract youngsters.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/28/world/americas/mexico-drugs-cartel-tiktok.html
While on TikTok, the lure for record companies is too high apparently - they are now creating accounts for deceased stars!
Down Syndrome, Eugenics, abortions and nationwide testing
This is quite an extraordinary article capturing how Denmark practically eliminated Down Syndrome. And the cost for the country.
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/12/the-last-children-of-down-syndrome/616928/
If no one with Down syndrome had ever existed or ever would exist—is that a terrible thing? I don’t know,” says Laura Hercher, a genetic counselor and the director of student research at Sarah Lawrence College. If you take the health complications linked to Down syndrome, such as increased likelihood of early-onset Alzheimer’s, leukemia, and heart defects, she told me, “I don’t think anyone would argue that those are good things.”
But she went on. “If our world didn’t have people with special needs and these vulnerabilities,” she asked, “would we be missing a part of our humanity?”
Best of the rest:
This is morbidly innovative. Brazil has too much street violence, so there now exist crowdsourcing apps to keep Rio’s residents safe and tell them about locations of gang wars - https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/11/26/1012671/the-apps-keeping-rios-residents-safe-from-stray-bullets/
New York’s most famous murals and the stories behind them - https://edition.cnn.com/style/article/new-york-famous-murals/index.html
Check your mic levels so you don’t sound like a broken record on your video calls - https://www.miccheck.me/
There exists an Apple Watch app cleared by the FDA to stop nightmares caused by PTSD - https://www.fiercebiotech.com/medtech/fda-clears-apple-watch-sleep-app-intervenes-to-stop-nightmares-caused-by-ptsd
The epidemic is not over yet. Do take precautions. NYT polled 700 epidemiologists on how they are living now. Not a pretty picture - https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/04/upshot/epidemiologists-virus-survey-.html
An update on the family that went all-in on Bitcoin - https://www.cnbc.com/2020/12/03/bitcoin-family-invested-their-retirement-and-savings-in-bitcoin-ethereum-litecoin.html
“He has done enough work as an undergraduate to get a faculty position,” - Good read on a desi Math genius student at the MIT - https://www.quantamagazine.org/mit-undergraduate-math-student-pushes-frontier-of-graph-theory-20201130
More proof that, at the end of the day, we are all humans, and each of us is fighting our own inner devils. A very sad, and informative, piece on the final days of Tony Hsieh - https://www.forbes.com/sites/angelauyeung/2020/12/04/tony-hsiehs-american-tragedy-the-self-destructive-last-months-of-the-zappos-visionary
I leave you with this fabulous art installation!
And yes, now accepting tips on how to handle the cognitive overload every time this screen pops up!
Stay safe, and happy reading! And if you liked the newsletter, please do share on your social networks. My DMs on Twitter are always open for any feedback.