The Generalist: “Traba, a $200 million staffing platform, is one of the most interesting startups in the world right now….[It] runs one of the startup world’s most unique, unapologetic cultures. The $200 million staffing platform modeled its standards on China’s “9-9-6” schedule, which expects employees to work from 9 AM to 9 PM, six days a week. While it has relaxed its policies as it has grown, Traba still counts an “Olympian work ethic” as a key cultural value.”
Andy Kessler: “We are now an economy of logistics, online sales and electronic delivery. Manufacturing economies such as China and much of Europe are much more interest-rate-sensitive than the U.S. Higher interest rates may matter, but for an increasingly smaller portion of our economy. The Fed’s interest rates are a blunt instrument anyway. Bureaucrats now try to control the economy by tinkering with the money supply and paying interest on excess reserves—Treasury uses reverse repos to soak up liquidity. These are more behind-the-scenes tools than the headline Fed power interest-rates moves we all focus on. There is an area in which interest rates really do matter: federal budget deficits, unnecessarily boosted by electric vehicle subsidies and other green goo. For perhaps the first time, interest payments this year will be larger than defense spending. This is one reason recent Treasury auctions have seen weak demand, sending long rates higher. Here’s a silver lining: The economy might be fine, but higher rates may finally bring a day of reckoning to rein in the tax-and-spenders.”
FT: “If you still find it hard not to stare at yourself when you’re on a video call, then you are not alone. Nor should you worry that this betrays a distressing level of narcissism. The author Nancy Mitford once observed that people who look at themselves in every reflection often do so not from vanity but a feeling that all is not quite as it should be. Video calls, which subtly distort our faces, are the perfect demonstration. The speed with which we have folded video meetings into our lives is remarkable. In 2019, California video conferencing company Zoom had 10mn daily users. It now has about 300mn. Rapid uptake has resulted in new etiquette — the smile and silent wave that marks the end of a call, for example. But the level of self-surveillance that is required remains strange. This is why companies such as Microsoft, Google and Zoom have been quietly changing your appearance.”
Gulzar: “Every example of successful development journeys in recent times from Singapore under Lee Kuan Yew to China under Deng Xiaoping to South Korea under Park Chung-hee and their respective successors, has been about “driving a car at night on roads with several forks and turns” or “crossing the river by feeling the stones”. These journeys have been about the right political and institutional incentives and wise leadership combining to create the conditions for the exercise of a series of good judgments that in turn facilitated “good development decisions”. Such judgments can sometimes go wrong. It’s common in national development journeys to have bad judgments (or misjudgments), even phases of several bad judgments. The more complex the context, the greater the likelihood of mistakes. Most commonly, bad policies and bad leadership often stray into the path and can derail the journey. The challenge is not to avoid these mistakes, for they are inevitable. But to have institutional incentives that allow mistakes to get quickly detected, deliberated, and rectified. This means institutional acceptance of failures and the space for deliberation within the policy-making and implementation systems. Strong institutional systems can help countries that have gone astray recover lost ground and get back.”
