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Patagonia’s brilliantly executed brand positioning

This company has moved beyond selling physical products and lifestyles into the business of selling an identity.

The persona

I am youthful and vibrant, I am passionate about the great outdoors and I will fight to preserve the environment which I so much love.

My thoughts

Nowhere within this 100 page magazine was there ever a mention that Patagonia sells outdoor gears but if you identify with the persona just described above then Patagonia is your go to brand.

The company has positioned its brand at the self actualization level of the Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.

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Key insights from mooncake festival at house of Jerry and Liza

Technology trends

  • Companies are increasing shifting their service from one-off on premise licensing deployment monetization to cloud based SaaS recurring subscription models
    • revenue hit in the short run
    • increased customer LTV in the long run
    • affected publicly traded companies will experience short term discounts to their shares
  • Artificial intelligence versus Augmented intelligence
    • companies are increasingly shifting away from automatic insight generation to systems that help decision makers simulate and model potential outcomes when specific policies are executed
    • demand is shifting from insight generation to data cleaning services
  • Corporate adoption of artificial intelligence
    • CEOs are increasingly considering how to leverage AI as a tool for their trade
    • primary use case is figuring out how to increase their sales volume
    • experiencing challenge on how to apply AI on in-house data to achieve monetization goals
  • Rise of deep vertical data networks
    • EverString – provides sales lead refresh for all client companies ends up becoming a large database for decision-making executives information, approximately 6 million records
    • StreetSine.sg – cleans up real estate data to help agents better price houses for sale by utilizing in-house agency ends up becoming a large database of high quality real estate data
  • Crypto-currency
    • Bit coin is still the main poster child
    • general population still skeptical about libra
    • main argument is still to remove central bank controls
    • main adoption hurdles
      • writing throughput volume
      • a stable store of wealth
      • starting to be using as a means to facilitate transaction in China
      • Inability to increase or decrease currency supply in times of need is going to be hard as a means to provide much needed stimulation during economic recessions and inflations

US/China trade war

  • sources of conflict
    • technology theft
    • forced technology transfer
    • unfair trade practices like subsidized state owned Chinese companies operating in the export markets
  •  economy
    • China is experiencing inflationary deleveraging
      • local farmers are not growing critical food sources
      • critical food supplies are imported
      • price of imported goods are denominated in US reserve currency
      • shifting of supply chain out of China to
        • Vietnam
        • India
        • Taiwan
      • capital flight
        • Li Ka Shing moved funds out from Hong Kong in 2013 to Europe
        • raising funds for US Venture capital from China was easy prior to Chinese and US government shut down
    • US is experiencing deflationary deleveraging
      • businesses are concerned about macro environment and are reducing fixed investments
      • manufacturing is slowing due to decreased demand both locally and overseas
      • consumer spending and confidence is still strong
  • Chinese domestic concerns
    • Potential US meddling in Chinese domestic affairs – Hong Kong’s demonstration and demands
      • Revoking of National Education
      • Revoking of extradition bill
      • Resignations of HK Chief executive
      • universal suffrage: freedom to elect their own leaders
    • destabilized situation presents a challenge for Xi JinPing’s party to retain control of power over former Jian Zemin’s faction
  • value system
    • US is a highly rule based system
    • China’s system of control is highly subjective to the individual in power.  Direct government intervention in the distribution of wealth is a major source of concern

US/Mexico and world issues

  • NAFTA agreement was too one side and failed to take into account large  imbalance between the two economies
  • US’s arrangement of allowing Mexican tax payers the right to claim dependents ultimately resulted into tax claims and refunds for entire extended families in Mexico. This has the effect of subsidizing Mexican’s at the expense of Americans living along the rust belts
  • Its observed income inequality is becoming prevalent across the entire world not just within US and China.

Related readings

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The American Factory

Context

FuYao is a Chinese manufacturing company that products glass for automobiles companies:

  • Honda
  • Toyota
  • Hyundai

The company setup a factory in Dayton Ohio in 2013 to take advantage of the abundant supply of cheap skilled labor in the region resultant of the 2008 recession.

Overarching trends

  • globalization continues to apply downward pressure of wage growth around the world for commoditized labor
  • automation continues to eliminate entire categories of jobs around the world

In depth analysis of FuYao Glass America

The opening of a plant in the new country can be seen as a acquisition of sorts.  Acquisition activities is considered a merge of the following components:

  • Culture
  • Process
  • Assets

In this case, it could be seen as a merging of FuYao’s culture and process with Dayton Ohio’s asset which is cheap skilled labor.

Below are the key conflicts with the merger

  • highly structured and propagandized environment (Chinese) versus loosely structured and casual environment (USA)
  • processes built around social norms in a weak union environment (China) versus social norms from a strong union environment (USA)
  • productivity and throughput focused paradigm (Chinese) versus safety and family focused paradigm (USA)
  • workers paid USD29/hr when working for GM before it shuttered are now paid USD17/hr under FuYao
  • governor and grassroots were encouraging unionization to encourage more say American say in the running of the plan

Key transitions

  • removal of locally hired senior management (USA) with Chinese senior management (USA) for effective implanting of culture within company
  • battling against worker unionization
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David Letterman interview with Barack Obama

 

Leaders impact is more on shaping the attitudes more so than setting legislations

Income inequality caused by globalization and technology has eliminated  entire categories of jobs. Wealthy people with excess money to invest due to this aggregation of wealth at the top seeks to maximize their wealth by investing in more and more kinds of financial instruments to return generates. This in turn creates bubbles.

Cost of health care and college education continues to rise as corporate America continues to optimize its monetization engine.

Online media channel consolidation and structural deepening of algorithmic social media newsfeed (Facebook and Twitter) continues to drive polarization of views.  The media is primarily geared towards eliciting a response so as to drive conversion rate instead of helping audience develop well rounded perspectives on social issues through holistic presentation of facts.

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Key insights from weekend with Jerry, Liza, Ada and Dan

On US/China trade war

  • 25% tariff basically wiped out whatever profit margin importing from China could bring
  • China’s labor cost have been increasing over the past few years that it is no longer a competitive advantage
  • China’s main advantage is the expertise they built up over the years. A company can easily spin up 25 manufacturing lines in China very quickly
  • US companies are all rapidly shifting their manufacturing activities out of China
  • New locations are Taiwan, India and Vietnam
  • Chinese staff that were retained by Google are now flying to new manufacturing facilities spun up in these countries to oversee the spin up process

On alternate data

  • Real estate
    • the rise  of platforms like AirBnB has lead investors to seek out alternate data that can help predict short term rental yield as opposed to long term rental yield in a neighborhood
    • government agencies are seeking such data to detect neighborhoods where they should focus their efforts to crack down illegal subletting on AirBnB
  • Sports
    • being able to predict strategy coaches of football teams will employ in real time will help support strategies
    • being able to predict starting line in close to real time and the corresponding outcomes will be valuable for coaches in making play decisions

On HongKong/China protest

  • Public opinion is the agenda for the ongoing protest is now getting really murky
  • Airport has stopped operations, it’s hard to even get in and out of the country
  • Foreign Chinese nationals are supportive of protest in HongKong
  • Topics pertaining to Taiwan, Tibet and TianAnMen massacre are sensitive topics amongst mainland Chinese
  • Funds of funds from Hong Kong are still very liquid
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Insights from evening with Wine and Jam session with Adriene and Dennis, Birthday party with Konstantine

From Tommaso on Machine Learning – Economics

  • Study was done on Italy
  • Voting patterns can be leading indicators for credit spread
  • When a political party is stable, Eigen distance between votes of party members will cluster together, even for bills that are not critical for parties
  • When a political party becomes unstable, the Eigen distance between vote on non-critical bills by party members will increase
  • Alignment will increase before a wild swing to misalignment
    • periods of high alignment leads to very tight credit spread
    • tight credit spread indicates a very high price for bond
  • Misalignment will decrease before consolidation towards alignment
    • periods of low alignment leads to very wide credit spread
    • wide credit spread indicates a very low price for bond
  • proposed strategy:
    • when alignments increase, short bonds in anticipation for forthcoming misalignment
    • when misalignments increase, long bonds in anticipation for forthcoming alignment

From Tommaso on Machine Learning – Micro-biology

  • Started studying how presence specific bacteria affects health at an aggregate level
  • Studying ancestral tree of bacterias help estimate the distribution of bacteria in the gut of different individuals

On sales

  • Mormons are one of the best sales people due to their coming to age ritual.
  • They typically will get rejected many many times during their passing through rite

On human cyborgs

  • Neil Harbisson is an artist who is color blind, he implanted a device into his brain which allows him to see colors

On hardware and biotech with Andrew

  • To design printed circuit board install IDE which allows easy assembly, simulation and coding – DesignSpark
  • Firmware for micro-processors are written in C. Firmware controls where signals are past to when incoming signals are received
  • Micro-processors are installed on circuit board
  • Can be printed in China and shipped over in 5 days – PCBWay
  • BioCurious and another biotech hacker space up in Berkeley have managed to train yeast to product cocaine and THC

Related readings

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Insights from lunch with Andrew and Paul

On trading

  • learn to read technical charts
  • price and volume reflects all necessary sentiment and information
  • Read the charts in different time frames with gives a sense of various impacts have on pricing trends
  • news happen after the fact which drives emotions like fear. When the brain is overcame by fear irrational behavior results.
  • charts remove the emotional component

On news and propaganda

  • All news are forms of propaganda best avoided or taken with a pinch of salt.
  • It is hard to trace much major change in life to any specific news occurrence
  • news is less about facts but more a reflection of the reader’s attitudes and belief toward the subject receiving coverage
  • how is it that US news sites are able to report on a country like North Korea where no information is available externally? Are the gaps mainly filled in by US propaganda

On education

  • its hard to be an educator in the US.
  • There is too much regulation
  • Students are not as motivated compared to students in other countries

On the environment

  • Three hundred chemical components are found in donated blood that are not supposed to be there
  • climate change is a major concern
  • capitalism driven consumerism is not sustainable

Related readings

  • Slow death by the rubber duck
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Federal Chairman Jerome Powell on 0.25% interest rate cuts

Overview

  • Outlook for the US economy is favorable but
    • core inflation is only at 1.6% instead of 2%
    • cutting interest rate by 0.25% from 2.5% to 2.25%
  • insurance against downside risk
    • global growth is slowing
    • trade policy tension is a new stimulus to the equation and it is a concern
  • key objectives
    • strong job economy
    • 2% inflation rate
  • adopt an iterative approach by observing how economy reacts to policy changes

Key areas of concern

global growth slow down

  • US core inflation rate is at 1.6% – excludes food and energy inflation which are cyclical
    • US GDP sustained
  • US manufacturing declined in 2019Q1 and 2019Q2
  • US business fixed investment slowed in 2019Q1 and fell in 2019Q2
    • companies uncertain about investment spending
    • not seeing additional demand for products
  • June US job growth slowed in 2019Q2
  • disinflation rates observed in other countries
    • manufacturing in rural China and the EU are slowing

highly leverage business sector within the US

  • Business borrowings are excessive
  • loans have moved off balance sheet of banks to market based vehicles

Positive signals of sustained US economy

  • rising household income drives confidence
  • no booming sectors observed hence no concerns for busts

Federal Reserves framework for monitoring risks

  • Excessive leverage in the Financial sector
  • Excessive asset valuations
  • Excessive debt loads in households and business
  • Funding risks that could result in sudden shortfall of liquidity

Structure of the US economy

  • US capital requirements within banks are at 2X of what is required to tide through tough times
  • Allocations
    • 70% consumer
    • 30% investments and manufacturing
      • not growing
      • remains healthy

Related references

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Summary of readings and conversations for the week

Trends observed

  • Worsening income inequality
    • driven by increased globalization and automation with failure in re-education as the primary cause
    • Continued low worldwide interest rates as central banks the world over struggles to prop up inflation rate at 2%
  • Rise in protectionism around the world in response to income inequality
    • Slowing trade volumes around the world
  • Demand saturation at the upper income segments
    • Slowing demand for housing in South Bay
    • Too much money chasing after too little deals

Related sources

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Book summary AI super-powers, China, silicon valley and the new world order by Kai Fu Lee

The difference waves of AI

  • Internet AI – Facebook, Netflix, Google search
  • Business AI – Palantir
  • Perception AI – Tesla cars
  • Autonomous AI – Tesla self driving, Google self driving

Key locations

  • Silicon Valley
  • Zhong Guan Cun – Beijing

State of the Union

  • We are in the stage of implementation/application as opposed to RnD
    • having access to more data is more important than have expertise to do more RnD
    • having solid AI engineers is more important than AI researchers
  • We are still far from general AI
  • Key ingredients
    • data
    • computing
    • maybe work of strong AI algorithms engineers

Key differences between eco-systems

  • Silicon Valley businesses are mission and core values driven while Chinese businesses are pragmatically focused on profitability.
  • Silicon Valley businesses stay in bits and binaries offloading the brick and mortar to external vendors vendors while Chinese businesses extend their business model into the brick and mortar (online to offline)
  • Silicon valley prefers one size fit all strategy, Chinese businesses utilized localized solutions often investing/acquiring in local startups
  • Americans treat search engines like Yellow Pages (come and leave fast) while Chinese treat search engines like shopping mall (come to linger around long)
  • Silicon Valley is adversed to copying preferring to be unique Chinese business copy the heck out of each other

Chinese Advantage

  • Abundant data – quality and quantity aided by their online to offline initiatives
  • hungry entrepreneurs
  • AI scientist
  • AI friendly policy environment – strong emphasis by Chinese government
  • Hardware manufacturing know how – Shen Zhen
    • unparalleled supply chain flexibility – XiaoMi

Silicon Valley Advantage

  • Microchip manufacturing know-how

Trends within the Chinese eco-system

  • Darwinian eco-system has lead to extreme levels of competition
  • Chinese companies have already moved past the stage of clone Silicon Valley business models
  • Businesses innovate to build a defensive moat around themselves. Local businesses have advantage, with no timezone differences to deal with, decision making is relatively faster.
  • Online to offline
    • an essential ingredient to building strategic moats
    • caused the decline of cash use
  • Chinese government information systems will be able to leap frog US government information systems

Policy approaches

  • Google – impeccable safety
  • Tesla / China – trial by fire
  • key to winning the Autonomous AI race
    • is the bottleneck technology (Silicon Valley) or policy (China)?

Key concerns

  • having cheap labor is no longer going to be a source of advantage in a world heavily powered by automaton.  Developing countries hoping to employ this well tested strategy to progress will not be able to do so anymore
  • Estimated 60% potential job loss worldwide barring policy interventions
  • Job loss probability assessment
    • physical labor
      • environment – unstructured versus structure
      • tasks nature – level of dexterity versus high dexterity
    • cognitive labor
      • social – high versus low
      • cognitive – optimization based versus creativity/strategy based
  • AI replacement approach
    • single tasks approach
    • ground up rethink re-imagination
  • A population of irrelevant (no longer employable) as opposed to unemployed

Tackling Key concerns

  • Silicon valley – reduce, retrain and redistribute
  • Kai Fu Lee – stipends for care, service, education

New promise

  • Humans freed up from repetitive tasks can now focus on becoming more human oriented

Related readings

  • Disruptor, Zhou
  • www.Arvix.org – an online repository of scientific papers
  • Folding Beijing – Hao JingFang