📘 This Week I Learnt Edition 15
CRISPR, Petnups, NBA Valuations, Remote work and more
Hello👋🏻
Welcome to the “This Week I Learnt” (TWIL) Newsletter. Hope you’re doing well.
Section 1: The TWIL Billboard
On Issue #15: 🧬 🖥️ 🏀 🐶 💳 🗽 🔮
Medical Future and CRISPR, Microsoft vs Slack, NBA Valuations, The worth of pets in divorce settlements, Remote work and international payments, NY Rank choice voting and Tiktok-as-a-Fashion Retailer’s oracle
Section 2: Tales from the Fortune 500 (🚘 Toyota: Nice guys don’t always finish last)
I’ve got some interesting stories that I came across this week. Hope you enjoy it!
Sit back, relax and read on 📚
📘The TWIL Billboard
🧬 Medical Future gets CRISPR
For the first time, the gene therapy technique, CRISPR, has been used to successfully treat disease inside the human body. The big medical breakthrough by biotech startup Intellia Therapeutics and its partner Regeneron involved using the treatment to fix a rare mutation linked to tissue and organ degeneration. As you have guessed right, shares have surged
Source: Nature on CRISPR’s landmark trial
🖥️ Microsoft isn’t cutting Slack any slack
The new Windows 11 bundles the company’s MS Teams video chat and collaboration software at the potential expense of rivals like Slack and Zoom. Familiar? MS bundling of Internet Explorer into Windows was made to snuff out Netscape, ending in it being sued in the late 90s. MS walks a very tight rope as it weaves around impending anti-trust regulation
Source: Verge on Microsoft’s Anti-trust problem
🏀 They see me ballin’, They mintin’
The National Basketball Association(NBA) is experiencing a gold rush. League-wide media rights have surged to about $3 billion annually that combined with growing arena & merchandise revenue, which has caused valuations to surge. Worth an estimated $367 million in 2011, the average NBA franchise is now worth about $2.2 billion — a CAGR of almost 20%
Source: Huddle Up on the NBA’s $5 Billion Franchise
🐶 The worth of a pet in Divorce Settlements
In the eyes of the law, pets are sadly property when it comes to divorce. Lawyers in the US have begun recommending petnups (prenups for pets) to help manage divorce dealings over pets. The idea comes following years of court dealings where often the most contentious discussion is around pet ownership. New bills aim to treat pets similarly to kids
Source: AP News on Pets and Divorce Settlements
💳 Remote Work and International Payments
The disparity in the ease of transferring money locally vs internationally is well recognised. With truly remote work and international work surging, there is a growing need for seamless payroll management. Challenges include forex hassles, tax implications, and banking regulations among others. As the economy becomes global, payments will have to too
Source: Kriti Arora’s Substack on remote work and international payments
🗽 Rank Choice Voting | New York State of Mind
New York voted for its new mayor this past week. For the first time ever, ranked-choice voting was employed. Essentially, voters don’t just select one candidate to give their vote to, but as many as five in a priority list. The move is a shift from the winner-takes-all binary form of voting that incentivises polarisation and vote-splitting and not needing a majority
Source: NPR on Ranked Choice Voting in the New York Mayor elections
🔮 Streetcorner to TikTok- the Fashion Retail’s Oracle
The world of retail runs on predicting the future. What you buy in December was decided in June. Retailers usually have eyes and ears on the ground, hunting for new trends. However, it is now moving towards a crazed race to study web traffic and reviews, Instagram and TikTok posts. Trends become irrelevant but not capturing them yields obsolescence
Source: New York Times on Fashion retailers using Tiktok to predict trends
⭐Tales from the Fortune 500:
Toyota (TYO): Nice guys don’t always finish last
Breaking into a new market is always a challenge, let alone penetrating the US car market where the big three (GM, Ford, Chrysler) accounted for 82% of the market share in 1973. So what do you do when your car is less efficient, less advanced and a threat of hostile retaliatory taxation? Stay the hell out…..Well, not if you are TYO.
It was never going to be a piece of Kēki. TYO spent years studying the production lines of American carmakers such as Ford and tried to copy what they did so well. They blended these processes with the strengths of their own and came up with something even better. TYO proved that knowing their own weaknesses can be the key to success.
In the world of lean manufacturing, any production system that we now know is literally the Luke Skywalker to the Toyota Production System (TPS)’s Darth Vader.
Here’s an added thought. Can you name a single famous executive at Toyota? I can’t. It’s not a surprise then to learn that TYO’s #1 corporate value is humility. This unique mix of humility and patience is a reminder that in a sea of corporate bullies, you don’t need to become a bully to survive
🚘 Just be humble, sit down and drive your processes to excellence
My curated reading List for the Week: 📚📚📚
Vogue Business on High Fashion retailers opening restaurants on-premises
All Things Cryptech on how DeFi is eating Financial services
Center for American Progress on the true cost of high-quality childcare
Chief Executive on Facebook, The FTC And A New Model For Antitrust
ESPN on Abhimanyu Mishra-The World’s Youngest Chess Grandmaster
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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