Great to see @amdiamond, author of 'Openness to Creative Destruction', at #ASSA2020. Thank you for stopping by our booth! Don’t forget to check out his book here: https://t.co/nOVr2D8Yd7 pic.twitter.com/i1s8cYNJCA
— Oxford Economics (@OUPEconomics) January 4, 2020
Clayton Christensen plausibly argues that in the rare cases where an incumbent firm has been able to disrupt itself, it is almost always a firm where the founding entrepreneur is still running the firm.
(p. A1) MEMPHIS, Tenn.— Fred Smith bristles at any hint that FedEx Corp., the global delivery giant he built over four decades, could be disrupted by a player such as Amazon.com Inc.
. . .
FedEx’s 75-year-old chairman and chief executive, the man who pioneered the business of moving packages around the world at lightning speed, is confronting some of the greatest threats to the company he founded.
Global trade is slowing and tariff (p. A9) fights have companies rethinking supply chains. A key partner, the U.S. Postal Service, is struggling. Amazon has morphed from a customer into a competitor.
. . .
Mr. Smith, a former Marine officer and decorated Vietnam War veteran, started FedEx in 1971 and has been CEO for nearly its whole history. The billionaire was preparing to hand over the reins, but he extended his stay after two top executives, including his heir apparent, abruptly left.
That has left Mr. Smith, who remains one of FedEx’s biggest shareholders, to revamp the business. He started with divorcing Amazon.
For years, Amazon has been building up its logistics operations to handle more deliveries itself. The online retailing giant added tractor-trailers, hundreds of sorting centers and dozens of cargo planes to carry millions of its packages. It now delivers nearly half its orders, compared with less than 15% in 2017, according to estimates from research firm Rakuten Intelligence.
In February [2019], Amazon noted in its annual report that it views companies in “transportation and logistics services” among its rivals.
“They had never done that before that day,” Mr. Smith said. “So we took it seriously.”
For the full story, see:
(Note: ellipses, and bracketed year, added.)
(Note: the online version of the story has the date Oct. 17, 2019, and has the title “Fred Smith Created FedEx. Now He Has to Reinvent It.”)
(p. 1) CSAKVAR, Hungary — Under Communism, farmers labored in the fields that stretch for miles around this town west of Budapest, reaping wheat and corn for a government that had stolen their land.
Today, their children toil for new overlords, a group of oligarchs and political patrons who have annexed the land through opaque deals with the Hungarian government. They have created a modern twist on a feudal system, giving jobs and aid to the compliant, and punishing the mutinous.
These land barons, as it turns out, are financed and emboldened by the European Union.
Every year, the 28-country bloc pays out $65 billion in farm subsidies intended to support farmers around the Continent and keep rural communities alive. But across Hungary and much of Central and Eastern Europe, the bulk goes to a connected and powerful few. The prime minister of the Czech Republic collected tens of millions of dollars in subsidies just last year. Subsidies have underwritten Mafia-style land grabs in Slovakia and Bulgaria.
Europe’s farm program, a system that was instrumental in forming the European Union, is now being exploited by the same antidemocratic forces that threaten the bloc from within. This is because governments in Central and Eastern Europe, several led by populists, have wide latitude in how the subsidies, funded by taxpayers across Europe, are distributed — even as the entire system is shrouded in secrecy.
For the full story, see:
(Note: the online version of the story has the same date as the print version, and has the title “The Money Farmers: How Oligarchs and Populists Milk the E.U. for Millions.” The online version says that the title of the New York print edition was “Populist Politicians Exploit E.U. Aid, Reaping Millions.” The title of my National edition was “Populist Regimes Siphon Millions in E.U. Farm Aid.”)
(p. A1) In a medical breakthrough that compares to the use of penicillin for war wounds, two new drugs are saving lives from the virus and helping uncover tools against other deadly infectious diseases. They were proven effective in a gold-standard clinical trial conducted by an international coalition of doctors and researchers in the middle of armed violence.
. . .
(p. A10) Dr. Muyembe set out on his path to an Ebola treatment during the 1995 outbreak. He transferred blood from five survivors to eight patients, hoping that the antibodies that kept some people alive would keep others from dying. Seven of the patients who received the blood transfusion recovered.
He published the results in a scientific journal in 1999. Other researchers said the study was small and had failed to include a control group, a comparison set of patients who weren’t given the treatment, to fully test its efficacy.
For the full story, see:
(Note: ellipsis added.)
(Note: the online version of the story has the date Oct. 30, 2019, and has the title “‘Ebola Is Now a Disease We Can Treat.’ How a Cure Emerged From a War Zone.”)
(p. A13) People of all backgrounds are starting to see how they can participate in our wonderful free-market system. They’re innovating, creating jobs and lifting themselves and others up.
I was fortunate to come to that same realization as a young man. Although I had always aspired to be financially successful, my role models in Nebraska City, Neb., of the 1940s and ’50s were mainly doctors, dentists and attorneys in town. There was nothing to point me toward founding a discount brokerage firm, as I ultimately did with Ameritrade. Luckily, on my father’s advice, I took a job as a credit reporter for Dun & Bradstreet.
It wasn’t a high-paying or respected job, but it meant I spent my days driving from business to business in Nebraska and Iowa, interviewing entrepreneurs about their balance sheets. Those business owners shared proud stories of how they built their companies. Their joy was palpable. Had I not received that education in the field, I might never have become an entrepreneur.
For the full commentary, see:
(Note: the online version of the commentary has the date Nov. 10, 2019, and has the title “Big Business Is Overcharging You $5,000 a Year.”)
Ricketts’s commentary is related to his book:
Ricketts, Joe. The Harder You Work, the Luckier You Get: An Entrepreneur’s Memoir. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster, 2019.
(p. 10) When Robb Alvey, an amusement park fanatic, heard that Universal Studios Orlando was shuttering its beloved “Jaws”-themed ride in 2012, he made sure to grab a front-row seat for the closing day.
Using a hand-held digital camera, he filmed the six-minute boat ride: from the skipper Jacob welcoming passengers; to the “mayday” distress call; to the first sighting of the prosthetic shark; to the grenade launchers and exploding fireballs; and, finally, to the “high-voltage” cable that fries the animatronic beast.
Mr. Alvey, 49, who lives in Orlando, Fla., and runs a website called Theme Park Review, uploaded the footage to YouTube. Seven years later, the video has been viewed more than 160 million times.
. . .
That longing for expired rides is certain to increase in coming years, as America’s theme parks are renovated: In August, Disney announced that Epcot will undergo yet another major overhaul, while Universal Orlando recently revealed plans for a massive new park called Epic Universe.
And when parks make big changes, the charmingly antiquated rides are often first to go. In 2014, Walt Disney World shuttered its Studio Backlot Tour, a behind-the-scenes look at movie production, to make room for “Star Wars”: Galaxy’s Edge, a blockbuster attraction that opened this year.
“The backlot tour was over two hours long, and took up a big part of your day, but it showed you every aspect of filmmaking,” said Alicia Stella, 37, a journalist who covers theme parks on her website Orlando ParkStop. “I miss those kinds of attractions. A lot of the new ones are fast-paced thrill rides.”
Such expansions are a reminder that the parks are in a constant state of evolution, which makes the archivists’ efforts all the more crucial: You never know when your favorite ride could close for good.
For the full story, see:
(Note: ellipsis added.)
(Note: the online version of the story has the date Nov. 2, 2019, and has the title “Where ‘Jaws,’ the Ride, Lives Forever.”)
(p. A18) The authorities are searching for an unidentified man who they say fatally stabbed another man in an altercation while waiting for the new Popeyes chicken sandwich in Maryland on Monday night [November 4, 2019].
. . .
Kevin Tyrell Davis, 28, who had cut a line designated specifically for customers ordering the sandwich, was confronted by another customer once he reached the counter, . . .
An argument broke out, and seconds later Mr. Davis was stabbed once in the upper body, the police said, adding that they found a knife at the scene.
. . .
The two men were not associated with each other before the crime, the police said.
. . .
Mr. Davis was rushed to a hospital, where he died from his injuries, Ms. Donelan said.
For the full story, see:
(Note: ellipses, and bracketed date, added.)
(Note: the online version of the story has the date Nov. 5, 2019, and has the title “Man Is Fatally Stabbed Over Popeyes Chicken Sandwich.”)
(p. A27) Climate protests drew millions around the world in September. Many of the Democratic presidential candidates have rolled out ambitious plans to cut carbon while making the economy greener. There’s a sense of momentum to solve our planetary crisis. And yet a leading cause of climate change remains persistently overlooked or trivialized: clothing.
The clothing and footwear industry is responsible for 8 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, nearly the same as the entire European Union, according to a study by the environmental services group Quantis. Without abrupt intervention, the industry’s impact on the climate is on track to increase by almost half by 2030.
For the full commentary, see:
(Note: the online version of the commentary has the date Nov. 3, 2019, and has the title “Wear Clothes? Then You’re Part of the Problem.”)
(p. A23) When Thomas Philippon moved to Boston from his native France 20 years ago, he was a graduate student on a budget, and he was happy to discover how cheap American telephone use was. In those days of dial-up internet connections, going online involved long local phone calls that could cost more than $10 apiece in France. In the United States, they were virtually free.
. . .
Today, his parents pay about 90 euros (or $100) a month in the Paris suburbs for a combination of broadband access, cable television and two mobile phones. A similar package in the United States usually costs more than twice as much.
. . .
The irony is that Europe is implementing market-based ideas — like telecommunications deregulation and low-cost airlines — that Americans helped pioneer. “E.U. consumers are better off than American consumers today,” Philippon writes, “because the E.U. has adopted the U.S. playbook, which the U.S. itself has abandoned.”
For the full commentary, see:
(Note: ellipses added.)
(Note: the online version of the commentary has the date Nov. 10, 2019, and has the title “Big Business Is Overcharging You $5,000 a Year.”)
Philippon’s views on competition are elaborated in his book:
Philippon, Thomas. The Great Reversal: How America Gave up on Free Markets. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 2019.
(p. A1) Kelly Swift grew tired of the Los Angeles area a few years ago so she decided to leave—and take her job with her.
Ms. Swift kept her role in health-care information-technology consulting, and her California salary, when she and her family settled in a suburb of Boise, Idaho. Her employer didn’t mind that she started working from home.
Ms. Swift joined a group of workers fueling a renaissance in U.S. cities that lie outside the major job hubs. People who do their jobs from home, freelance or constantly travel for work are migrating away from expensive urban centers such as Los Angeles and San Francisco toward cheaper cities including Boise; Denver; Austin, Texas; and Portland, Ore., according to economists and local residents.
For the full story, see:
(Note: the online version of the story has the date September 7, 2019, and has the title “Workers Are Fleeing Big Cities for Smaller Ones—and Taking Their Jobs With Them.”)
(p. A7) In a rare marine lake on a hatchet-shaped atoll in Indonesia, four species of jellyfish have evolved in isolation and lost their ability to sting humans. There are believed to be millions of these benign jellyfish in Kakaban Lake, which has become a popular spot for tourists intrepid enough to reach the remote archipelago known as the Derawan Islands.
. . .
While the jellyfish continue to thrive on Kakaban, the island has just two human inhabitants, . . .
. . .
About 4,000 people, mostly Muslim, live on nearby Maratua, the largest of the Derawan islands.
. . .
Maratua has at least two marine lakes. One, Haji Buang, once had jellyfish to rival Kakaban Lake. But about five years ago, its owner, Hartono, thought he could make some quick cash by raising more than 30 hawksbill sea turtles in the lake.
Only after he put the turtles in the water did he discover that it would be illegal to sell their shells because the species is critically endangered.
The hawksbills, which feed on jellyfish, have nearly exterminated the lake’s population.
“Now I regret it,” said Mr. Hartono, 62. “There used to be more jellyfish than in Kakaban Lake, but we didn’t realize this could be a tourist area.”
Mr. Hartono said he was contemplating how to catch the turtles so he could return them to the sea — with the hope that the jellyfish population would recover.
For the full story, see:
(Note: ellipses added.)
(Note: the online version of the story has the same date as the print version, and has the title “INDONESIA DISPATCH; A Lake With Stingless Jellyfish and Hints of Hotter Seas.”)
