📘 This Week I Learnt Edition 14
Facebook VR, EV SPACs, $MANU, Tattoo Industry, and more
Hello👋🏻
Welcome to the “This Week I Learnt” (TWIL) Newsletter. Hope you’re doing well.
Happy to announce a new sub-series “Tales from the Fortune 500” as part of each edition bringing you pioneering strategies from the Fortune 500 series of companies.
Section 1: The TWIL Billboard
Section 2: Tales from the Fortune 500
I’ve got some interesting stories that I came across this week. Hope you enjoy it!
On Issue #14: 🕶️ 🐟 ✒️ 🪑 🔋 😈 🇱🇷
Facebook's VR Future, Salmon and the US Mega-drought, The boom in the Tattoo Industry, Deflating EV SPACs, Manchester United's Business Model and Liberia's High fashion Olympic tryst
Sit back, relax and read on 📚
📘The TWIL Billboard
🕶️ (1) Facebook: “VR all we need”
Facebook’s acquisition spree 2.0 is here. After the WhatsApp and Instagram rush of 2011-12, Virtual Reality is FB’s next big thing. FB is going to probably have a near-monopoly in VR before it even matters. FB wants to accelerate the growth of a still-nascent industry by ensuring top-flight gaming experiences are widely available. Gaming is the new social?
Source: Platformer on Facebook Cornering the VR Market
🐟 (2) Salmon chauffeured in a Mega-drought
75% of US Western states are currently experiencing conditions dubbed a “mega drought”. As a result, desperate measures like trucking salmon 100 miles between water bodies are being taken. These trucks are taking the place of dried up riverways the salmon once swam to move from hatcheries. Sad reality. Encouraging action.
Source: Vice on Salmon Trucks and Mega-droughts
✒️ (3) The Pandemic Tattoo Boom
Across the world, tattoo artists are witnessing a boom in bookings during the pandemic. Driven by 3 main reasons; 1) People are memorialising their unprecedented struggles, 2) to embrace a new vehicle for self-expression after months of social inhibition, 3) WFH and fewer workers having to suffer from the corporate stigma against visible body art.
Source: Vox on the Pandemic Tattoo Boom
🪑 (4) IKEA Hacking, D-I-How?
IKEA is kind of like the Bitcoin of furniture: the company uses universal designs across most of the world. This has given rise to a new phenomenon, “IKEA Hacking”. Broadly, IKEA hacking is any form of upgrade, repurposing, or personalizing a piece of stock Ikea furniture. And an entire industry has come up offering retrofits and services on top of IKEA designs!
Source: IKEA on IKEA hacking
🔋 (5) EV SPACs run out of charge
Cumulatively Electric Vehicle(EV) Special Purpose Acquisition Companies (SPACs) are down ~60% across the board. This is attributed to 3 main drivers: 1) General overhype of the EV future vs ground reality, 2) Auto OEM incumbents ramping up investments, 3) Bad actors like Lordstown and Nikola and the associated PR debacle
Source: Climate Tech VC on EV SPACs Troubles
😈 (6) Manchester United’s Business Model
Today you will learn that the “Red Devils” is a publicly-traded company ($MANU). ManU’s finances like most top-flight clubs can be broken down into three main categories: 1) 44%-Commercial Revenue (Sponsorships, Partnerships, Retail), 2) 38%-Broadcasting Revenue, 3) 18%-Matchday Revenue. Covid is accelerating a change in the revenue mix
Source: Huddle Up on the Business Model of Manchester United
🇱🇷 (7) Liberia set to win the Olympic Fashion Show
For the first time in more than two decades, the Liberian Olympic delegation has a sponsor to outfit them. And it is not the usual Nike or Adidas. It's well-known Liberian-American designer Telfar Clemens. It also will likely be one of the smartest high visibility marketing campaigns for the designer. Telfar - “They said, ‘Go crazy.’ So I did.”
Source: Highsnobiety on Liberia’s Olympic Uniforms
⭐Tales from the Fortune 500:
McKesson (MCK): Hiding in plain sight
What’s the richest company in California after Apple?
Google?
Tough Luck. The answer: McKesson (MCK). Never heard of it? You’re not alone. The drug distribution behemoth literally hides in plain sight. MCK is an American company that distributes pharma drugs and provides health information technology, and care management tools.
With a 187 year heritage and a $208B annual revenue in an industry where company turnover is directly proportional to the number of pending lawsuits against it, MCK has clearly done something right (it’s just business…)
Inherently a logistics company, MCK helps your doctor manage patients, get you your prescriptions, and helps you pay your bill; How convenient. Boomers might just be inclined to call Amazon the Mckesson of the 21st Century
MCK is everywhere and nowhere; spending little to nothing on Marketing. While the Tesla's, Uber’s & Oyo’s of the world are heralded for their disruptive quotient, there’s something to be said for a California business that is old, boring and predictably corporate.
💊Red Pill or Blue Pill? You decide. Mckesson chooses blue
My curated reading List for the Week: 📚📚📚
Reuters Institute on the Digital News Report 2021 (Check out the executive summary)
Pocket on the origins of the Monopoly game to counter capitalism
Bloomberg Quicktake on the Future of Shopping in the world, now in China
That’s all for today! As always look out for the next issue on Friday!
Until then. Stay safe. See you soon 👋🏻
- Dhruv
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