CDOQ

I wonder how much brutality and injustice went unpunished when we did not have internet connected camera phones. 

Why do some animals evolve to become venomous for survival? 

Social distancing is keeping the people away but allowing the animals to come closer. 

Frameworks facilitate structured thinking and limit creative thinking. 

Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG) or Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) are goods that consumers buy frequently like food, beverage, makeup, household products, etc. It is an over two trillion dollar industry in North America. Some of the well-known CPG companies are Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Procter and Gamble, Colgate-Palmolive, Unilever , etc.  CPG aisle in store (Source: Wikipedia) It is hard to create a highly differentiated product in the CPG space. For example, soap is soap for most people. Some might want to avoid buying soap with triclosan  but it is difficult to make a soap 10x better than an average soap and charge a reasonable price. Or, think of bottled water. There are over one hundred different brands which differentiate based on where the water is from and the packaging. For many CPG companies, half the sales come from WalMart so which retailers carry your products is important. There are mainly five different ways in which CPG companies differentiate their pro

Phil Fisher was an investor who pioneered the style of investing (stocks of publicly traded companies) based on growth prospects of companies as opposed to finding companies which might be undervalued. He used the following qualitative approach to evaluate  what stocks to buy:  A classic  1. Does the company have products or services with sufficient market potential to make possible a sizable increase in sales for at least several years?  2. Does the management have a determination to continue to develop products or processes that will still further increase total sales potentials when the growth potentials of currently attractive product lines have largely been exploited?  3. How effective are the company's research and development efforts in relation to its size?  4. Does the company have an above-average sales organization?  5. Does the company have a worthwhile profit margin? 6. What is the company doing to maintain or improve profit margin

Quibi   is a new company, formed in 2018, which is the brainchild of its chairman  Jeffrey Katzenberg . He hired Meg Whitman  as Quibi's  CEO. Both Katzenberg ( Disney )  and Whitman ( eBay )  are well known names in American business. Because of these high profile names, the company has raised $1.75B in investment capital.  Quibi What does Quibi do?  Quibi ( Qui ck bi tes) is a subscription-based mobile app that provides short-form (less than ten minutes), professionally-produced videos (episodes as parts of shows). New episodes are released everyday as parts of different shows.  Quibi has produced a lot of these shows.  The intended watch-time is when people are out and about, like standing in line for coffee or commuting on the train . Another unique feature ( under a lawsuit )  is called Turnstyle which basically makes the video appealing (no black bars) both in portrait and landscape  modes.  Quibi offers two subscription plans: $4.99 per month with ad

Relationships obstruct efficient flow of capital and labor. 

Greg Mankiw has a good idea about how the government can distribute money to the people who lost wages because of the coronavirus pandemic. Since speed is of the essence, the government can not take the time to target the right people.  Basically, give money to all adults in the US until people can get back to jobs (i.e. a few months). Next year, when people file for taxes, people who needed the money, decided based on income differential in 2020 and 2019, can keep it and people who did not need the money have to return it.  Source: Wikipedia See the details here .