Weekend news drop
Mark Carney: ‘I didn’t want the Bank of England job. But I was asked to fix something’ He earned a fortune at Goldman Sachs, but now the banker wants the financial sector to reassess its values and tackle the climate emergency (Guardian)
What Happened to Pickup Trucks? As U.S. drivers buy more full-size and heavy-duty pickups, these vehicles have transformed from no-frills workhorses into angry giants. And pedestrians are paying the price. (Bloomberg)
The great generational wealth transfer is under way Recent reports on the frenzy in the real estate market have often referenced a somewhat surprising element: Millennials have largely been driving the rush. It would appear it’s millennials, not investors from mainland China, largely responsible for the head-spinning amounts of money being put down on properties. And there is likely a perfect explanation. (Globe and Mail)
Debranding Is the New Branding From Burger King and Toyota to Intel and Warner Brothers, major brands are discarding detail and depth. Why now, and what’s the rush? (Bloomberg)
Excel Never Dies The Spreadsheet That Launched A Million Companies. Most software we use at work exists in one of two categories: 1. It’s new and we love it for now. 2. It’s old but we have to use it and we hate it. But there’s one software product born in 1985 that inhabits its own category: it’s old, but we love it, we always will, and you’ll have to pry it from our cold, dead, fingers. That product, of course, is Microsoft Excel. (Not Boring)
Big Market Delusion: Electric Vehicles The “big market delusion” is when all firms in an evolving industry rise together, although as competitors ultimately some will win and some will lose. The electric vehicle industry, with its astronomical growth in market-cap over the 12 months ending January 31, 2021, is a prime example of a big market delusion. In the highly competitive and capital-intensive auto industry, the January 2021 valuations of electric vehicle manufacturers are simply not sustainable over the long term.(Research Affiliates)
How Facebook got addicted to spreading misinformation By the time thousands of rioters stormed the US Capitol in January, organized in part on Facebook and fueled by the lies about a stolen election that had fanned out across the platform, it was clear the Responsible AI team had failed to make headway against misinformation and hate speech because it had never made those problems its main focus. The company’s AI algorithms gave it an insatiable habit for lies and hate speech. Now the man who built them can’t fix the problem. (MIT Technology Review)
Bitcoin is a mouth hungry for fossil fuels The story of Bitcoin isn’t a sideshow to climate; it’s a very significant and central force that will play a major role in dragging down the accelerating pace of positive change. This is because it has an energy consumption problem, it has a fossil fuel industry problem, and it has a deep cultural / ideological problem. Years of blood, sweat and tears extinguished by a bunch of bros with laser-eye profile pictures. (Ketan Joshi)
Weight Watchers Isn’t Fooling Anyone The company rebranded as WW in 2018, but it’s still selling the same unhealthy diet culture. The whole idea of dieting and losing weight is increasingly seen as unhealthy and sometimes misogynistic and really just uncool. The cult of thinness hasn’t disappeared, but the body positivity movement has begun to chip away at it. (Slate)
The Greatest Pool Player In History Just Wanted To Hustle He spent his teenage years and his twenties as a hustler, living in what the New York Times once called “lucrative obscurity.” He traveled to the United States and played under different names, returning to the Philippines tens of thousands of dollars richer. His unassuming nature suited him as a hustler. But you can only hide from your own shadow for so long. It got to the point that Efren Bata was a known commodity in billiards halls around the world. So he did the only thing he could do—he turned pro. (Defector)
A lap down Double D in Duncan Bas Van Steenbergen RAW