First Derivative [13]
Nike kicks—American race—spycraft—North Korea—African wars—slumlords—Chinese apps—9 to 5—business moats
as always, organized roughly by order of what I most enjoyed reading
To build a sustainable and profitable business, you need strong defensive moats around your company. This rings especially true today as we undergo one of the largest platform shifts in a generation as applications move to the cloud, are consumed…
Systems of intelligence as the new moat in an age of disruption—TK
Killing C.I.A. Informants, China Stifled U.S. Spying
The Chinese government systematically dismantled C.I.A. spying operations in the country starting in 2010, killing or imprisoning more than a dozen sources over two years and crippling intelligence gathering there for years…
Transcript of New Orleans Mayor Landrieu's address on Confederate monuments
Just hours before workers removed a statue of Confederate general Robert E. Lee — the fourth Confederate monument to be dismantled in New Orleans in recent weeks — Mayor Mitch Landrieu gave a special address at historic Gallier Hall.
Mitch Landrieu is a politician to watch and this is a speech worth reading (watch if you can, YouTube vid is embedded). There's also an Atlantic piece worth reading about Mayor Landrieu's efforts in NOLA called 'A Matter of Black Lives'.—TK
Langston Hughes poem fitting for the times—TK
The Advantage Of Being A Little Underemployed
To realize how outdated the five-day, 40-hour workweek is, you have to know where it came from. Before 1900 the average American worker worked more than 60 hours a week. A standard schedule was ten-hour days, six days a week. The only structural…
“You waste years by not being able to waste hours.”—Tversky
In North Korea, the US Advertises Its Intentions
There are signs that military action on the Korean Peninsula is increasingly likely. On March 8, we wrote an analysis that said North Korea appeared to be crossing a red line set forth by the United States. And now, there are signs…
I always enjoy a chance to read Friedman's thinking (check out his books). I pray he is wrong on NK although I don't know how much longer things came remain in the status quo.—TK
Nike's 36-Year Quest for the Transparent Sole
A pair of platinum-colored Nike running shoes seem to levitate above a pedestal in the middle of a circular room. The left and right sneakers point outward, each poised at 45 degrees. Spotlights give them an ethereal glow and, here and there…
App wars: Tencent takes on Apple in China
IN MOST of the world, the success of Apple's “walled garden” of proprietary software has two elements. First, its attractive services: users tend to be addicted to its iTunes music shop and iBooks store. Second, the complexities…
mini-programmes, little trouble in big China. Seeds of a platform shift from mobile apps to what is essentially an app OS that commoditizes the phone—TK
Jared Kushner's Other Real Estate Empire
The Townhouse on High Seas Court in the Cove Village development, in the Baltimore suburb of Essex, was not exactly the Cape Cod retreat that its address implied: It was a small unit looking onto a parking lot, the windows of its two bedrooms so…
The U.S. is waging a massive shadow war in Africa, exclusive documents reveal
Six years ago, a deputy commanding general for U.S. Army Special Operations Command gave a conservative estimate of 116 missions being carried out at any one time by Navy SEALs, Army Green Berets, and other special operations forces across the…