Rishi Taparia - Issue #94
This week we look at the Amazon Prime origin story, how to deal with digital pollution, a former climate action denier’s new perspective, five lessons from history and more. Enjoy!
Commerce and Fintech
The making of Amazon Prime, the internet’s most successful and devastating membership program
The battle for two day, and now next day delivery has been going on for so long it’s easy to forget what started it all. This piece, published a few weeks ago, is a fantastic oral history of the subscription service that started 15 years ago that changed online shopping forever.
JPMorgan's deposit growth slowing as customers seek higher yield - Reuters
Neobanks seem to be getting the attention of giants. JPMorgan, the largest bank in the US, said deposit growth has slowed. Gordon Smith, co-president and COO said “People are taking a component of their deposits. They’re parking those deposits with a high-yield competitor, whomever they may be.” Getting anywhere between 2.0% and 2.45%, consumers don’t seem to be content with bad service and no return. Whether it prompts a move is another thing, but noteworthy to see it get mentioned in the C-Suite.
Alleged ATM scam suspect tied to ring that looted nearly $1m in five states, authorities say
This feels like it’s a movie script in the making starring one of these guys. Scammers using what authorities call a “cashout” scam allegedly managed to drain nearly $1 million from American Express accounts by using Santander ATMs in just six days. Only problem is they got caught. According to the Secret Service, “Ultimately, the purchasers of the stolen financial information use the account numbers to encode plastic cards with magnetic stripes, such as gift cards, counterfeit credit or debit cards, and hotel key cards, which they then use to withdraw currency from ATM machines.”
Technology
The World Is Choking on Digital Pollution
As industrialization led to increased urbanization, the by-products of combined human activity grew to such levels that their effects could not be ignored. This piece presents a compelling argument around treating digital pollution in the same way.
Bringing together the threads needed to tackle this type of problem—studying the phenomenon, assigning responsibility, and committing to solutions big enough to match the scope of what was being faced. It started with the recognition that direct and indirect human waste was itself an industrial-scale problem. By the 1870s, governmental authorities were starting to give a more specific meaning to an older word: they started calling the various types of waste “pollution.”
Google’s Shadow Work Force: Temps Who Outnumber Full-Time Employees
The use of contractors at tech companies is no surprise, particularly at startups looking to manage budgets and avoid some of the fully loaded costs of FTEs. I knew Google employed contractors with some regularity, but had no idea the extent to which that workforce kept the company moving. As of this March, “Google worked with roughly 121,000 temps and contractors around the world, compared with 102,000 full-time employees.” The tech company has long used contractors, but some employees worry that a growing reliance on them represents a shifting, less admirable work culture.
Uber COO Barney Harford, CMO Rebecca Messina Step Down
After a tumultuous stock debut that has seen the company finally rebound to it’s IPO price, Uber CEO has parted ways with two top lieutenants in a major leadership overhaul. Barney Harford, the chief operating officer, and Rebecca Messina, the chief marketing officer, are both leaving the company after being brought on by the CEO, Harford from Orbitz and Messina from Coca Cola.
Climate and Energy
What Changed My Mind About Climate Change?
A former VP for the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, spent his entire career arguing against climate action, believing “while climate change was real, the impacts would likely prove rather modest and that the cost of reducing greenhouse gas emissions would greatly exceed the benefits.” Now, he’s changed his mind. The reason? Risk management.
A renewable energy mutual fund? Starbucks charts new path with 146 MW procurement
Starbucks is going all in on renewables. The coffee giant announced this week they are building a new portfolio of 146 MW of wind and solar projects expected to come online by 2021 and serve more than 3,000 of its U.S. locations. Starbucks now directly sources renewable energy from North Carolina, Washington, Texas and Illinois, which powers 1,400 stores across the country, The portfolio allows the company, with a very distributed load given the locations of their stores, to procure power in the communities they are operating in, a strategy that is likely to be increasingly modeled by other companies catering to the same demographic.
GM and Bechtel plan to build thousands of electric car charging stations across the US
The largest automaker and the largest construction company are teaming up to build thousands of fast charging stations to support the EVs on the road, now and to come. GM alone is planning on introducing 20 new EV models by 2023, but the chargers will be able to be utilized by other car companies’ models as well. And while other major charger rollouts have taken place along large highways, these “chargers will also be located in densely populated cities where many potential EV owners living in apartment buildings and condominiums can’t have home chargers.”
Random Tidbits
Five Lessons from History
Morgan Housel from the Collaborative Fund is a terrific essayist and thinker. This recent piece titled Five Lessons from History explores human psychology, history and motivation in thought provoking piece worth a read.
Lesson #1: People suffering from sudden, unexpected hardship are likely to adopt views they previously thought unthinkable.
Lesson #2: Reversion to the mean occurs because people persuasive enough to make something grow don’t have the kind of personalities that allow them to stop before pushing too far.
Lesson #3: Unsustainable things can last longer than you anticipate.
Lesson #4: Progress happens too slowly for people to notice; setbacks happen too fast for people to ignore.
Lesson #5: Wounds heal, scars last.
Becoming a Digital Grandparent
As I’ve written about before, screen time is serious business when it comes to infants and toddlers (heck, even adults!) The exception to the no-screens rule is Facetime. When it comes to warnings about limiting kids’ screen time, “grandparents are, well, grandfathered in.”
Elton John: 'They wanted to tone down the sex and drugs. But I haven’t led a PG-13 life'
In this exclusive article, Elton John writes about his extraordinary life and why he finally decided to give the Rocketman biopic the green light. It’s rare to get the subject of a biopic’s commentary on a movie made about them, and when that someone is Elton John, you know you’re in for a treat. His final thought on the movie: It’s obviously not all true, but it’s the truth.
Quote I’m thinking about: “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.” – Will Durant