Category: Antitrust

Optimal Size Changes With Changing Demand and Technology

(p. B1) Twirling above a strip of land at the mouth of Rotterdam’s harbor is a wind turbine so large it is difficult to photograph. The turning diameter of its rotor is longer than two American football fields end to end. Later models will be taller than any building on the mainland of Western Europe.

Packed with sensors gathering data on wind speeds, electricity output and stresses on its components, the giant whirling machine in the Netherlands is a test model for a new series of giant offshore wind turbines planned by General Electric.

. . .

(p. B5) In coming years, customers are likely to demand even bigger machines, industry executives say. On the other hand, they predict that, just as commercial airliners peaked with the Airbus A380, turbines will reach a point where greater size no longer makes economic sense.

“We will also reach a plateau; we just don’t know where it is yet,” said Morten Pilgaard Rasmussen, chief technology officer of the offshore wind unit of Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy, the leading maker of offshore turbines.

For the full story, see:

Stanley Reed. “A Monster Wind Turbine Is Upending an Industry.” The New York Times (Saturday, January 2, 2021): B1 & B5.

(Note: ellipsis added.)

(Note: the online version of the story has the date Jan. 1, 2021, and has the same title as the print version.)

Fierce Competition in a Hazelnut-Cream-Filled Duopoly

(p. B1) MILAN — As Marianna Farina and her husband did some Christmas shopping on a windy night in Milan, she noticed lots of people walking around with small brown packages of cookies.

“I was curious,” she said. “Because I had heard about the cookie wars.”

She had found her way to a promotional pavilion set up to hype the introduction of Pan di Stelle Biscocrema, a new hazelnut cream-filled cookie by the venerable Italian breakfast brand, famous for its round cocoa cookies dotted with 11 white sugar stars.

About a month earlier, Nutella, the juggernaut of hazelnut spreads, had encroached on Pan di Stelle’s turf by introducing, after what the company said were 10 years and 120 million euros (about $133 million) in research and development, Nutella Biscuits. Ms. Farina had tried and liked them. Now she bit into the Pan di Stelle cookie. She liked it, too.

“It’s a tough one,” she said.

. . .

(p. B6) And so the Christmas cookie battle between two cultural and culinary touchstones, Pan di Stelle and Nutella, and their superpower parent companies, the pasta giant Barilla and the chocolate giant Ferrero, strikes right at the Italian aorta.

“When it comes down to Barilla and Ferrero, there can be a war,” said Michele Boroni, a marketing expert in Milan. “It’s a competition between Italy’s last food giants that have remained Italian.”

. . .

But in January 2018, Barilla made a move. It introduced jars of Pan di Stelle Crema, a spread made from “100 percent Italian hazelnuts and ‘dreamlike’ chocolate,” the company’s news release said.

Ferrero was not about to let the aggression go unanswered. The company raised the stakes in early 2019 by quietly dipping across the Italian border and testing Nutella Biscuits in other countries. In April, it rolled out the cookie in France to start spreading buzz and demand among Italians living and traveling abroad.

“This is our modus operandi,” said Claudia Millo, a Nutella spokeswoman.

For the full story, see:

Jason Horowitz and Anna Momigliano. “A War in Italy With Cream In the Middle.” The New York Times (Thursday, December 26, 2019): B1 & B6.

(Note: ellipses added.)

(Note: the online version of the story has the same date as the print version, and has the title “Italy Is in a Hazelnut Cream-Filled Civil War.”)

Apple Will Make Its Own Mac Processor Chips

In similar stories told in books by Grove and by Christensen and Raynor, technology firms work better when large, if components require careful design to work well together. When components become standardized and interchangeable, technology firms work better when smaller, buying components from specialized component suppliers. Deciding what is best at any moment requires uncertain judgement, and can change over time. In the passages quoted below, it appears that Apple thinks better performance can be achieved by integrating a key component back within the firm.

(p. B4) Apple Inc. built its gadget empire by outsourcing production to a vast ecosystem of chip makers and other component specialists. Under Chief Executive Tim Cook, it is taking a lot of that business back.

The company, which released its first iPhone processor in 2010, said Monday [June 22, 2020] it plans to ship Macs later this year with custom chips, a move that ends a 15-year technology partnership with Intel Corp. Apple said the custom-designed chips are more efficient and offer higher-performance graphics.

. . .

The strategy springs from Apple’s philosophy—fostered by its late co-founder Steve Jobs—that owning core technologies provides a competitive edge. Customized chips and sensors can help its iPhone, iPads and Macs leapfrog rivals in battery performance and features. It also can protect Apple from Chinese rivals that buy universally available parts.

. . .

The initiative—called insourcing by some suppliers and analysts—can give Apple a two-year jump on competitors in device performance because Apple can plan how multiple chips work together to limit power consumption and free up space inside iPhones and iPads for other components, analysts said.

It also reduces potential leaks of its product plans.

For the full story, see:

Tripp Mickle. “By Making Its Chips, Apple Gains Control.” The Wall Street Journal (Wednesday, June 24, 2020): B4.

(Note: ellipses, and bracketed date, added.)

(Note: the online version of the story was updated June 24, 2020, and has the title “Apple Is the Newest Chip Giant in Town.”)

The Grove book mentioned above is:

Grove, Andrew S. Only the Paranoid Survive: How to Exploit the Crisis Points That Challenge Every Company. New York: Bantam Books, 1999.

The Christensen and Raynor book mentioned above is:

Christensen, Clayton M., and Michael E. Raynor. The Innovator’s Solution: Creating and Sustaining Successful Growth. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press, 2003.

Oligopolists Compete Intensely

(p. B3) The race is on between the world’s largest videogame console makers, this time during a period of heightened demand for at-home entertainment through the coronavirus pandemic.

Sony Corp. SNE 1.45% on Wednesday said two versions of the PlayStation 5 would go on sale in November, one for roughly $400 and another for $500. Both consoles will be sold in a small number of countries including the U.S. and Japan starting Nov. 12 and the rest of the world a week later.

Last week, Microsoft Corp. said it would release two new consoles as well, the Xbox Series X for $499 and the Series S for $299, on Nov. 10.

For the full story, see:

Sarah E. Needleman. “Videogame Rivalry Heats Up.” The Wall Street Journal (Thursday, September 17, 2020): B3.

(Note: bracketed year added.)

(Note: the online version of the story was updated Sep. 16, 2020, and has the title “Sony to Launch Two PlayStation 5 Models This Fall.”)

Musk Pivots Tesla to Be Less Automated and to Do More In-House

(p. B2) Mr. Musk became deeply interested in improving and automating the car-building process after painful struggles to increase production of the company’s first SUV, the Model X, in 2016.

In a rare public acknowledgment of error, Mr. Musk conceded in 2018 that he went overboard with his automation attempts for the Model 3. That mistake snarled the company’s efforts to ramp up production in 2017 and 2018—a dark period that shook investor confidence in his ability to execute on his vision for Tesla to evolve from a niche luxury brand into a mainstream electric-car company.

. . .

The factory expansion is a further acknowledgment by Tesla that some of its founding assumptions were off. The original business plan for the company, founded in 2003, was to create a car company resembling more of a personal technology company, rather than a traditional auto maker, by outsourcing vehicle assembly much like how gadgets were made.

But that effort was eventually abandoned as Mr. Musk began to realize the importance of controlling more of a company filled with complex logistics and manufacturing nuances.

He has since brought in-house more of his supply chain than is normal for a car maker, including seat manufacturing, and developed greater expertise in battery cell manufacturing.

For the full story, see:

Tim Higgins. “Tesla Races To Boost Vehicle Production.” The Wall Street Journal (Friday, July 24, 2020): B1-B2.

(Note: ellipsis added.)

(Note: the online version of the story has the date July 23, 2020, and has the title “Tesla Prepares for Hiring Boom as Elon Musk Targets Manufacturing Expansion.”)

The Duopoly of Intel and AMD Vigorously Compete

(p. B4) While Intel has struggled to move into mass production of its most advanced chips, rival chip maker Advanced Micro Devices Inc. has been challenging the company’s dominance. AMD’s market share in personal computer CPUs climbed above 17% in the first quarter, more than doubling from five years ago, according to Mercury Research. Intel holds almost all of the remaining market share.

. . .

Intel’s struggles with seven-nanometer chips mirror delays in designing and producing its earlier generation of chips based on a 10-nanometer process, an industry term tied loosely to the size of transistors that chips use to make calculations. Intel executives have told investors in the past that once the company conquered its challenges in 10-nanometer technology, sizing down to seven nanometers and beyond could happen more quickly.

. . .

There aren’t any “fundamental roadblocks” with the design of seven-nanometer chips, Chief Executive Bob Swan told analysts on a conference call, adding that Intel had found the root cause of the issue and was taking steps to avert further delays. He said Intel could turn more to external manufacturers, perhaps in combination with its own factories, to meet customers’ needs—a significant shift for a company that has mostly relied on its own manufacturing muscle.

The seven-nanometer delay could harm Intel’s competitive position because Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., the largest contract manufacturer of chips in the world, is expected to be making processors with even smaller, more efficient transistors by the time Intel comes out with its chips.

For the full story, see:

Asa Fitch. “Intel Gets Lift From Work at Home.” The Wall Street Journal (Friday, July 24, 2020): B4.

(Note: ellipses added.)

(Note: the online version of the story was updated July 23, 2020, and has the title “Intel Reports Profit Surge but Warns of Further Delays on Advanced Chips.”)

“The New York Times Is Going to Basically Be a Monopoly”

(p. B1) The gulf between The Times and the rest of the industry is vast and keeps growing: The company now has more digital subscribers than The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post and the 250 local Gannett papers combined, according to the most recent data. And The Times employs 1,700 journalists — a huge number in an industry where total employment nationally has fallen to somewhere between 20,000 and 38,000.

The Times so dominates the news business that it has absorbed many of the people who once threatened it: The former top editors of Gawker, Recode, and Quartz are all at The Times, as are many of the reporters who first made Politico a must-read in Washington.

I spent my whole career competing against The Times, so coming to work here feels a bit like giving in. And I worry that the success of The Times is crowding out the competition.

“The New York Times is going to basically be a monopoly,” predicted Jim VandeHei, the founder of Axios, which started in 2016 with plans to sell digital subscriptions but has yet to do so. “The Times will get bigger and the niche will get nichier, and nothing else will survive.”

For the full commentary, see:

Ben Smith. “Why the Success of The Times May Be Bad News for Journalism.” The New York Times (Monday, March 2, 2020): B1 & B5.

(Note: the online version of the commentary has the date March 1, 2020, and the title “Why the Success of The New York Times May Be Bad News for Journalism.”)

Oliver Williamson’s Subtle Attempt to Get Pablo Spiller to Turn Down the Music

Several years ago, I presented a paper in an economic methodology session at the AEA in which Williamson also presented a paper. He was a fellow pluralist in method. I think his work deserves more attention than I have given it. The profession will be worse for his absence.

(p. A9) Building on the work of Ronald Coase, Dr. Williamson developed transaction-cost economics, examining costs that go beyond the price of a good or service.

. . .

Some of Dr. Williamson’s thinking took shape when he worked for the Justice Department’s antitrust division in 1966 and 1967.

The department had accused Schwinn & Co. of restraining trade by limiting the retailing of its bicycles to authorized merchants. The conventional wisdom among antitrust enforcers was that such arrangements could be explained only as an effort to reduce competition.

Dr. Williamson found the question more complicated and argued that Schwinn’s motive might be to reduce costs. For instance, a restricted number of retailers would make it less costly to control quality and agree on how to share advertising expenses. The resulting increase in efficiency could benefit consumers.

. . .

Pablo Spiller, a friend and Berkeley colleague who lived across the street from Dr. Williamson, recalled that he spoke precisely but not always directly. One night Dr. Spiller was playing music a bit too loudly. Dr. Williamson called. Rather than mentioning the volume, he said: “You know, I actually like the current song more than all the previous ones.”

For the full obituary, see:

James R. Hagerty. “Economist Explored Inner Life of Firms.” The Wall Street Journal (Tuesday, June 6, 2020): A9.

(Note: ellipses added.)

(Note: the online version of the obituary has the date June 4, 2020, and the title “Oliver Williamson, Nobel Economics Winner, Studied Inner Life of Firms.”)

Frustration of a Non-Expert Entrepreneur Inspired the Creation of Square

(p. B6) It was 2009, and Mr. McKelvey—a glassblower, computer scientist and serial entrepreneur—had lost a sale of one of his artworks because he couldn’t accept American Express cards. Though neither he nor Mr. Dorsey, now CEO of Square and Twitter Inc., knew much about the world of credit-card transactions, his frustration inspired the creation of Square’s signature white readers, a technology that would revolutionize payments by allowing anyone to accept a card with a smartphone or tablet.

In his new book, “The Innovation Stack,” Mr. McKelvey uses the story of Square’s early days, and its success in fending off a rival product from Amazon.com Inc., to encourage other potential founders with a dearth of credentials to fix unsolved problems and start novel businesses.

“If you’re going to do something that’s never been done, by definition, you cannot be an expert,” he said. “Take it from a glassblower who started a $30 billion payment company: You don’t have to be.”

. . .

“. . . there are no experts anymore. We’re living in a world without expertise, and that’s the world of the entrepreneur, like it or not.”

For the full interview, see:

Peter Rudegeair, interviewer. “Square’s Co-Founder Sees Openings in Recessions.” The Wall Street Journal (Tuesday, May 26, 2020): B6.

(Note: ellipses, and quotation marks around last two sentences, added.)

(Note: the online version of the television review has the date May 24, 2020, and has the same title “BOSS TALK; Square’s Co-Founder: A Recession Is a Great Time to Start a Company.” The first several paragraphs quoted above are from Pter Rudegeair’s introduction to his interview of Jim McKelvey. The last couple of sentences are from McKelvey’s response to the last question in the interview.)

The book, mentioned above in the introduction to the interview, is:

McKelvey, Jim. The Innovation Stack: Building an Unbeatable Business One Crazy Idea at a Time. New York: Portfolio, 2020.

Rigid Merged Health Systems Cause Slow Covid-19 Testing

(p. A1) When a stay-at-home order in March all but closed the revered labs of the gene-editing pioneer Jennifer Doudna, her team at the University of California, Berkeley dropped everything and started testing for the coronavirus.

They expected their institute to be inundated with samples since it was offering the service for free, with support from philanthropies. But there were few takers.

Instead, the scientists learned, many local hospitals and doctors’ offices continued sending samples to national laboratory companies — like LabCorp and Quest Diagnostics — even though, early on, patients had to wait a week or more for results. The bureaucratic hurdles of quickly switching to a new lab were just too high.

. . .

(p. A5) In normal times, scientists at the Innovative Genomics Institute at Berkeley spend their time advancing the gene-editing technology called Crispr that the lab’s founder, Dr. Doudna, is known for.

But after the pandemic shut down the institute’s research in March, Dr. Doudna called for volunteers to redirect most of the labs’ work to coronavirus testing. The country was clamoring for more tests, after all, and her lab was full of researchers with the technical skills to make it happen.

Unlike many other major research institutions, Berkeley does not have a medical school or run its own hospital. So Dr. Urnov reached out to others in the area, who were still ordering from LabCorp and Quest, despite lengthy delays in processing results at the time.

“We would come to these entities and say, ‘Hi, we hear you have problems,’” Dr. Urnov recalled. “And they said, ‘Well, you have to basically work with our EHR,’” the acronym for electronic health records.

For the full story, see:

Katie Thomas. “In Testing Chaos, Some Labs Drowned While Others Sat Idle.” The New York Times (Friday, May 22, 2020): A1 & A5.

(Note: ellipsis added.)

(Note: the online version of the story has the date May 21, 2020 and has the title “These Labs Rushed to Test for Coronavirus. They Had Few Takers.”)

A Dynamic Industry, Like Wireless, Counsels “Greater Caution in Judicial Intervention”

(p. A13) Donald Trump’s administration likes living dangerously on 5G. It pulled an unlikely victory out of its hat when a judge approved the wireless merger of Sprint and T-Mobile that’s been in the works for nearly a decade. The judge gave the OK, he said, because his crystal ball (his words) was just as good or bad as those of the plaintiffs and defendants.

His most sensible and telling observation came on page 148, where he suggested that a dynamic and rapidly changing industry like wireless counseled “greater caution in judicial intervention.”

For the full commentary, see:

Holman W. Jenkins, Jr. “Trump Outswamps the 5G Swamp.” The Wall Street Journal (Wednesday, February 19, 2020): A13.

(Note: the online version of the commentary has the date Feb. 18, 2020, and has the title “YOUR HEALTH; Here’s Why Health Experts Want to Stop Daylight-Saving Time.” Where there is a difference in wording in the first quoted paragraph, the online version is used.)