Rishi Taparia - Issue #87
This week we introduce a new section to the newsletter on climate and energy and explore Burger King doing the impossible, Amazon not passing Go and adding cash, the complexity of climate change, the picturesque perch on the hill where Orwell wrote 1984 and more. Enjoy!
Climate change, energy and a new section in the newsletter
I have recently been spending reading and researching climate change. I believe climate change is the defining challenge of the 21st century and its impact will affect generations to come. Prior to this year didn’t know much about anything climate or energy related other than the primary driver of climate change is carbon emissions resulting from human activity, with nearly all of the increase attributable to human activities (during the Industrial Revolution there were approximately 260 parts per million (ppm) of CO2 in the atmosphere with that figure now at over 413 ppm and rising). Over the last few months I’ve done my best to meet people who can educate me on the space - academics, scientists, investors, entrepreneurs, regulators and more. Through these travels I’ve begun to learn what’s changed in the industry since the cleantech bust of nearly a decade ago and have become more interested in the future of climate and green tech, today’s trends and the technology and policy that may help accelerate the adoption of renewables and clean energy, while reducing carbon emissions and mitigating the impact of climate change on the planet. What this means for you dear reader: a new section of the weekly newsletter focused on climate. Hopefully you find it as interesting as I have!
Commerce
Burger King’s plant-based Whopper gets glowing review – from a meat lobbyist
Burger King delivered a whopper of an announcement last week when it announced that it would be bringing Impossible Foods to the restaurant chain. While not the first time a fast food chain has brought alternative meat to its menu (White Castle did this with in 2018), doing it at BK scale is an entirely different thing. This week a meat lobbyist went in and tried what I’m assuming he thought was a blasphemous attempt to replicate the sanctity of beef.
“This is not just another disgusting tofu burger that only a dedicated hippie could convince himself to eat…If I didn’t know what I was eating, I would have no idea it was not beef. Farmers and ranchers need to take notice and get ready to compete. I’ve tasted it with my own mouth, and this fake meat is ready for prime time.”
Enough said.
Walmart partners with Google for voice-assisted grocery shopping
The enemy of my enemy is my friend. Walmart’s grocery strategy has a missing piece: voice shopping. It is turning to Google to fill the gap.
Starting later this month, voice shopping for pickup will be available at more than 2,100 Walmart stores and online delivery at more than 800 Walmart stores. Walmart customers’ purchase histories will be linked to Google Assistant, so the assistant will know which type of products customers prefer
While the move allows Walmart to offer similar value to customers as Amazon with Alexa, I’d say Google benefits more from the tie up. Access to customer data will only serve to deepen Google’s understanding of an individual’s preferences and given the difficulty in getting granular data from grocery, it’s a coup for them to be able to do this at Walmart scale.
The World's Greatest Delivery Empire Made It Cheaper to Order In Than Eat Out
In China, Meituan has reshaped city life—and heightened a rivalry with a certain company that starts with A and rhymes with LALA. China’s most valuable company, Alibaba, and its various subsidiaries dominate the country’s online retail market for physical goods, but Meituan is leading the way in services with over “600,000 delivery people serving 400 million customers a year in 2,800 cities”. This piece is a terrific look at the raging battle for consumer mindshare in the world’s most populous country and how for the fight is reshaping the day to day lives of consumers everywhere.
Restaurant management platform Toast raises $250 million at $2.7 billion valuation
Boston-based POS company Toast raised a $250 million series this week at a $2.7bn valuation, up from $1.4bn and a $115m raise last July. While I’m not surprised at the need for more capital, I’m certainly surprised at the markup. Scaling POS is hand to hand combat, particularly with all the players attempting to be the operating system for the small business owner. Churn is a massive issue and often times raising capital is similar to lighting it on fire. The valuation almost doubling in such a short amount of time suggests some massive growth but the lack of any kind of customer numbers has me saying ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
FinTech
Amazon exec tells employees that Go stores will start accepting cash to address 'discrimination' concerns
We talked a few weeks ago about how Philadelphia banned cashless stores with legislation being pushed in New York and New Jersey to do the same. Well, it looks like there are some battles the retail giant out of Seattle (or is it Virginia?) won’t fight. Amazon will accept cash at Amazon Go stores in the future. How they will retrofit their stores and in what time frame is TBD but clearly the negative press got to them - Amazon isn’t typically one to announce plans without more concrete details behind them.
Its IPO Document Shows the Massive Extent of Uber’s Card Business
Uber filed to go public this week in what will almost certainly be the largest public offering of the year (unless Ant Financial decides to go public). Now while there are no shortage of pieces on the numbers and how the company actually posted a profit in 2018, some of the more underreported numbers are on the card processing side, the company doing “$43.5 billion in card volume” with a likely $1bn+ in processing fees.
Frustrated by the Tech Industry, Small Banks Start to Rebel
Small lenders are struggling to keep up with big banks’ flashy tech offerings, so they turn to service providers like the spendy Fiserv and FIS for help. Unfortunately, both these ‘core providers’ haven’t been good about supporting the long tail banks as well as they should. Now many are pushing back against what they view as onerous contracts and mediocre digital offerings.
Climate and Energy
Given it’s the first time for the section, I’m including a few more introductory posts that helped lay the foundation for me as I started reading. It also happens that this week the New York Time Magazine is running a Climate Issue which feature a few terrific pieces
Climate Change Is Complex. We’ve Got Answers to Your Questions.
17 often-asked questions about climate change with some straightforward answers.
Pretend It’s Aliens
A fantastic piece that offers a calibrated and well articulated summary of the challenges and ramifications of climate change ahead, as well as neat mental trick to understand the climate battle we are facing: think of it as aliens.
Elon Musk and Bill Gates are trying to do something about global warming. David Wallace-Wells asks, where is everyone else?
David Wallace-Wells has been talking climate change for years, most famously in his New York Magazine piece from 2017 (well worth a read). His recent book, “The Uninhabitable Earth”, has become a New York Times best seller and prompted letters to the author that crib about his emphasis on geoengineering as opposed to the horrific outcomes he takes climate change having on the world as fait accompli. This podcast between the author and Kara Swisher goes into what’s happening in climate and why more people aren’t entering the fight.
Random Tidbits
Orwell’s Last Neighborhood
It’s hard to know what would be a good place from which to imagine a future of bad smells and no privacy, deceit and propaganda, poverty and torture. Does a writer need to live in misery and ugliness to conjure up a dystopia?
Apparently not.
The opening lines of a piece dedicated to the exploration of George Orwell’s mind while envisioning the darkest of futures and grappling with mortality in Nineteen Eighty-Four. I was reluctant to include a long read like this in this week’s newsletter given all the amazing television going on this Sunday (Tiger Woods with the chance to win The Masters, the start of Game of Thrones as well as Billions, Veep and Barry) BUT I included it because heck, you’ll bookmark it anyway.
Mr. Rogers's Simple Set of Rules for Talking to Kids
A terrific piece on the TV legend possessed an extraordinary understanding of how kids make sense of language.
“State the idea you wish to express as clearly as possible, and in terms preschoolers can understand.” Example: It is dangerous to play in the street.
“Rephrase in a positive manner,” as in It is good to play where it is safe.
“Rephrase the idea, bearing in mind that preschoolers cannot yet make subtle distinctions and need to be redirected to authorities they trust.” As in, “Ask your parents where it is safe to play.”
“Rephrase your idea to eliminate all elements that could be considered prescriptive, directive, or instructive.” In the example, that’d mean getting rid of “ask”: Your parents will tell you where it is safe to play.
“Rephrase any element that suggests certainty.” That’d be “will”: Your parents can tell you where it is safe to play.
“Rephrase your idea to eliminate any element that may not apply to all children.” Not all children know their parents, so: Your favorite grown-ups can tell you where it is safe to play.
“Add a simple motivational idea that gives preschoolers a reason to follow your advice.” Perhaps: Your favorite grown-ups can tell you where it is safe to play. It is good to listen to them.
“Rephrase your new statement, repeating the first step.” “Good” represents a value judgment, so: Your favorite grown-ups can tell you where it is safe to play. It is important to try to listen to them.
“Rephrase your idea a final time, relating it to some phase of development a preschooler can understand.” Maybe: Your favorite grown-ups can tell you where it is safe to play. It is important to try to listen to them, and listening is an important part of growing.
Colson Whitehead’s Fierce and Funny Primer on Life and Chicken
Colson Whitehead, Pulitzer Prize winning author of “The Underground Railroad” gave the keynote speech at a writers conference. While focused on writers, his thoughts were broadly applicable, particularly to those trying something new, trying to reinvent themselves, struggling with imposter syndrome. He used his experience frying chicken as a metaphor for learning to be a good writer, and mentioned Star Wars too.
Quote I’ve been thinking about: “Sometimes (often actually) in business, you do know where you’re going, and when you do, you can be efficient. Put in place a plan and execute. In contrast, wandering in business is not efficient … but it’s also not random. It’s guided – by hunch, gut, intuition, curiosity, and powered by a deep conviction that the prize for customers is big enough that it’s worth being a little messy and tangential to find our way there. Wandering is an essential counter-balance to efficiency. You need to employ both. The outsized discoveries – the “non-linear” ones – are highly likely to require wandering.” - Jeff Bezos, Amazon shareholder letter 2018