Curated Commons // Edition 59
Thank you for subscribing and welcome to the 59th edition of Curated Commons. Let’s dive right in ($ indicates potential paywall).
Is Korea the new cultural superpower?
Interesting read from Noah Smith - Read here
Who needs Netflix when real-life business family feuds are this intriguing!
This story on Rogers Communications is wild. A family feud that has loads of board-level maneuvers. But the icing on the cake is reading Matt Levine’s take on it - Read here ($)
Basically the chairman tried to fire the CEO, then the board instead fired the chairman, and then the chairman (as controlling family shareholder) tried to fire the board. Also, some of the family tried to fire the chairman from his job as controlling family shareholder. It is not clear which of those things worked; as far as I can tell the most likely answer is that Edward Rogers lost at the board but won at the trust, meaning that he will eventually get to kick his sisters and mother off the board, reinstate himself as chairman and fire the CEO, but meanwhile his sisters and mother and the CEO probably have a few months to run the company and try to head him off. And they are totally jazzed to do that:
Stripe invests into carbon removal
We need more companies like Stripe that are willing to stick their necks out and take risks where rewards can be outsized. And when it is for the environment, all the more so! - Read here ($)
On a related note, icymi, check this piece on what Patrick Collision and others learnt from their experiments with fast research grants. Fascinating approach to encouraging research.
Real-time payments are market creators
Want to invest in an Initial Litigation Offering?
There is now a tokenized lawsuit fund. We live in times where anything, and everything, will be financialized, if it hasn’t already been. - Read here
Gravity, time, and aging
An ultra-precise clock now shows how to link the quantum world with gravity. - Read here
Will autonomous car races help reduce fear of autonomous cars?
Interesting challenge where every team gets the same equipment, and the algorithm is the differentiator.
How fast do algorithms improve?
Very interesting study that tries to evaluate how quickly algorithms improve. Only so much Moore’s law can do. - Read here
Our transition to a clean future is messy
Electric cars are great for the environment. But our transition to them will leave in its wake a whole bunch of auto suppliers whose market will have vanished, if not overnight, but pretty rapidly. What does that mean for auto industry manufacturing hubs around the world? - Read here ($)
Pokemon cards justify everthing!
A Georgia man lied in his application for federal coronavirus relief aid and then used the majority of the money he obtained to buy a Pokemon card, federal prosecutors say. - Read here
Everyone has their own version of a circular economy
#TIL there are apparently hyperlocal groups on Facebook where people give and receive things. Anything. - Read here ($)
Bookshops around the world
FT has a nice piece on great bookshops globally. Some lovely pics in there. - Read here ($)
When you mistake regulatory role as protection for incumbents
France banned free delivery of books. Amazon started charging a cent for shipping. Now France wants to impose a minimum shipping fee for book deliveries. And that hurts people without access to book shops. - Read here
Proving who we say we are is a billion-dollar opportunity
Deepfake voice, but for social engineering. Fraudsters managed to fake a company director’s voice resulting in a $35 Million bank heist. In a remote-first world, proving we are who we claim to be pretty big opportunity - Read here
(personal aside - proving we are who we say we are shouldn’t also be left in the hands of non-diverse teams. As a south Indian with a long name who opened a bank account in India 15 years ago, I still struggle to prove I am the same person who used initials then and now expands only the last name to fit IT systems. It’s a big pita!)
Not all heroes wear capes
When successful people in one arena think they have answers to everything in life! - Read here
More Interesting Reads:
How to get 120 Afghans out of Kabul - Read here ($)
The U.S. economy is booming, but there’s a mysterious hole in the labor force. - Read here ($)
Talk about code writing code. Nearly a third of new code on GitHub is written with AI help - Read here
And finally, this is too true!
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.