Reading
across disciplines is one of the best ways to improve our investment acumen.
Here is a summary of some of the best articles I read this week.I especially try to not post Corona related articles as that is all
one gets to read in all traditional media.
If you like this collection, consider forwarding it to someone who
you think will appreciate it.
Bio-manufactured material
Hyaline can change our gadgets
Biology is the most
advanced manufacturing technology on the planet. Hyaline may be the first
fermented electronic products and is already in use in flexible circuits,
display touch sensors, and printable electronics. The product merges the
benefits of advanced bio-fabrication with traditionally manufactured materials.
Increasingly,
companies are demonstrating fermentation can be used to make things like jet
fuel, vanilla, nylon, beauty products, and other items that ordinarily depend
on petrochemicals. In addition, the petrochemical toolbox is limited, expensive
and is running up against manufacturing bottlenecks.
Hyaline can be used
to create thinner films that are foldable, flexible, and more durable. It can
be used to develop full-screen touch sensors with new mechanical, physical, and
optical properties.
Performance-wise,
Hyaline has high-temperature features that enable faster processing times in
manufacturing. As a printed circuit board, Hyaline can be printed and used at
high temperatures, while eliminating epoxy and acrylic adhesive layers to
create systems that are thinner and more flexible.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/johncumbers/2020/04/12/inspired-by-nature-zymergen-brews-high-performance-bio-electronics
After meatless meat, here is
fishless fish
Many of the most
popular seafoods now suddenly face direct competition from dozens of startups
offering animal-free alternatives. The industry is still tiny, but sales of
plant-based foods have surged 29 percent in the past two years, compared with
just 4 percent overall for U.S. retail foods, and many expect the category to
follow the arc of plant-based milks, which now account for 14 percent of all
retail milk sales.
Fish-Free Tuna was
made using a blend of six legumes—soybeans, peas, chickpeas, fava beans,
lentils, and navy beans—with some algal oil and seaweed powder mixed in for
“Real Seafood Taste.”
https://www.outsideonline.com/2419099/plant-based-fish-seafood-good-catch
Distraction is not about
tech
Plato complained
about how distracting the world was 2,500 years ago. Clearly Plato never
struggled with an iPhone, so I take issue with the current narrative that
technology is hijacking your brain and that it’s addictive. It promotes learned
helplessness: We stop trying to change something because we think there’s
nothing we can do.
Most people don’t
want to acknowledge the uncomfortable truth that distraction is always an
unhealthy escape from reality; the drive to relieve that discomfort is at the
root of all our behavior. So instead of blaming technology, look for the
discomfort that precedes it. By identifying an uncomfortable internal trigger —
for example, loneliness, boredom, anxiety, or discontentment — and exploring
the sensation with curiosity, we can more easily disarm it.
https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/insights/super-power-tomorrow-being-indistractable
Of business longevity
Japan is an
old-business superpower. The country is home to more than 33,000 with at least
100 years of history — over 40 percent of the world’s total, according to a
study by the Tokyo-based Research Institute of Centennial Management. Over
3,100 have been running for at least two centuries. Around 140 have existed for
more than 500 years. And at least 19 claim to have been continuously operating
since the first millennium.
Most of these old
businesses are, like Ichiwa, small, family-run enterprises that deal in
traditional goods and services. To survive for a millennium, Ms. Hasegawa said,
a business cannot just chase profits. It has to have a higher purpose.Those
kinds of core values, known as “kakun,” or family precepts, have guided many
companies’ business decisions through the generations. They look after their
employees, support the community and strive to make a product that inspires
pride.
The Japanese
companies that have endured the longest have often been defined by an aversion
to risk — shaped in part by past crises — and an accumulation of large cash
reserves.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/02/business/japan-old-companies.html
You’re only as good as your
worst day
We tend to measure
performance by what happens when things are going well. Yet how people,
organizations, companies, leaders, and other things do on their best day isn’t
all that instructive. To find the truth, we need to look at what happens on the
worst day.
Products and
services are only as good as they are when they break, not when everything is
functioning fine. From a financial standpoint, companies prove their worth when
they show how they cope when something fundamental changes in the market or
there’s a financial crisis.
https://fs.blog/2020/12/worst-day/
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