Rishi Taparia - Issue #81
Apologies for missing last week’s issue, a stomach bug caught over the long weekend absolutely flattened my family and I. A longer issue than normal to make up for it! This week we look at Levi’s going public, Apple and Goldman gearing up for a consumer credit card, Visa and Mastercard raising processing rates, climate change’s impact on coffee, dolphins getting high and more. Enjoy!
Commerce
Levi Strauss Looks Beyond Jeans With IPO
An SF-based company with dominant market share is going public and will achieve unicorn status. Pretty standard right? Except for this company is over 160 years old and invented bluejeans. Levi’s, looking to go beyond denim, hopes to raise more than $600 million with an IPO at around a $3bn valuation in a return to the public markets after going private 30 years ago. The jean maker has a 12.1% share of the market, but will likely be more acquisitive in the future as it relies heavily on wholesale buyers of product, traditional retailers that have been hurting of late.
Amazon pledges 50% net-zero carbon shipments by 2030
Amazon is pushing retailers to do unnatural things. In this case, they are pushing for the good of the climate as well. In an memo out this week Amazon has pledged to drive towards 50% net-zero carbon shipments, intended to do so via a thorough review and revamping of their logistics, top to bottom.
Ex-Walmart exec says theft helped kill Walmart's cashierless tech
Maybe cashierless grocery is not the best move after all. Former Walmart exec Joel Larson suggested that cashierless stores resulted in increased theft, with one “customer [who] tried to leave a Walmart store with a cart of about 100 items, only 40 of which he had scanned.” I’ve talked before about how all the attention on cashierless, started by Amazon with Go, could be the ecommerce giant’s long con, diverting attention toward something difficult while waiting to drop the real retail solution. Maybe some are catching on?
Raspberry Pi opens first experiential retail store
Apparently B&M is hot again! Ok, maybe for some. The Raspberry Pi Foundation has opened a retail store in Cambridge (UK, not MA) intended to serve almost as a community center for Pi enthusiasts. The store will be focused on educating and supporting builders on Pi, following a trend started by Apple and replicated by the companies including Casper, Bonobos and Warby Parker.
FinTech
Apple, Goldman Sachs Team Up on Credit Card Paired With iPhone
Back in May of 2018 it was reported that Goldman and Apple were teaming up on a new credit card. Well, it seems like they’re finally ready for rollout with the new card ready for rollout this spring. The interesting announcement this week was centered around the features that the card will offer.
Engineers are working on new features for the Apple Wallet app that would encourage users to pay down their credit-card debt and manage their balances. Executives have discussed borrowing visual cues from Apple’s fitness-tracking app, where “rings” close as users hit daily exercise targets, and sending users notifications about their spending habits, for example flagging an unusually high grocery bill.
Competing in credit cards is no small feat, and you can trust both companies to tread carefully. Letting users set spending goals, track rewards and manage their balances in a financial health manner is the first step towards what they both hope to be broader and more holistic offerings over time.
Purchases With Plastic Get Costlier for Merchants—and Consumers
The two biggest U.S. card networks are apparently gearing up to increase certain fees levied on U.S. merchants for processing transactions that will kick in this April. Either Visa and Mastercard are in see no trend, hear no trend, speak no trend mode when it comes to the way fees in the industry are supposed to go, or this is a mafia don move proving their dominance and the industry’s reliance on them. Either way, I think this creates a tremendous opportunity for a company or companies that understand that data not fees is the key (*cough* Square, Stripe, Ant, Tencent) to step in and win a whole lot of market share.
Mastercard unveils 'sonic brand'
I had to check the date to make sure it wasn’t April 1st. Mastercard is getting into the sound business, having introduced a ‘sonic brand identity’. What is a sonic brand identity, you ask? Well, apparently it’s a suite of sounds based around a melody that can be used in many different contexts to remind people about Mastercard. Because that’s what customers want.
A Record 7 Million Americans Are 90 Days Behind on their Auto Loan Payments
The Federal Reserve Bank of New York reports that a record seven million Americans are 90 or more days behind on their auto loan payments. This is a record number and, despite low unemployment rates and reasonable market conditions, could be a leading indicator for some tough times ahead. This, coupled with a record number of student loans in serious delinquency, feels like it could be the start of a nasty downturn to come.
Technology
This startup reverse engineered coffee in case climate change means we can’t get coffee beans
Ok, just in case all the scientists, data and writing about the ill effects of climate change haven’t convinced you that it’s a problem worth tackling, maybe this will: 60% of the global coffee production is as risk due to climate change. Now, unless you are looking for coffee that “doesn’t actually have any coffee in it, but it might be the future of coffee”, pay attention!
Uber and GM Cruise are making their AV ‘visualization’ tools open source
Sometimes even the biggest of rivals collaborate. Uber and GM Cruise have made their AV visualization tools open source, in an “an unprecedented step in the world of closely guarded self-driving secrets, but one that will hopefully encourage developers to build a variety of cool applications that can, in the end, lift up the entire industry.”
Random Tidbits
It’s crunch-time for the baguette
An absolutely delicious piece on the importance of bread in France, how the baguette became an iconic part of French culture and whether the national icon is going stale in the minds of locals. Be warned, reading this will lead to wanderlust and a strange craving for coffee, pain au chocolat and a book in the 6th.
Dolphins Seem to Use Toxic Pufferfish to Get High
Even dolphins got 5 on it? Dolphins are apparently experts at dealing with toxic pufferfish who excrete toxins when under duress. This toxin gets dolphins high to the point where they [float] just underneath the water’s surface, apparently mesmerised by their own reflections.“ Oh, and if you are wondering what other animals have substance abuse problems:
Horses eat hallucinogenic weeds, elephants get drunk on overripe fruit and big horn sheep love narcotic lichen. Monkeys’ attraction to sugar-rich and ethanol-containing fruit, in fact, may explain our own attraction to alcohol.
Sometimes, Parenting Is Boring
“Taking care of a young child can be the most fascinating thing in the world, but there are times, let’s face it, when it is not.”
Quote I’m thinking about: “Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration.” Thomas Edison