Arnold Kling: “If I could wave a magic want, I would set up a different approach for people aged 16 to 20. I would want them to be socially integrated and educationally segregated. By socially integrated, I mean that they live in real-world communities, not on ritzy campuses. Ideally, they would spend at least a few months living in a rural environment, living in an inner city, living in a suburb, and living in a foreign country. They would be expected to get to know and respect the typical residents of these communities. By intellectually segregated, I mean that students’ ability and effort would matter. Grades would be rigorous, not inflated. Only the best scholars would be able to pass the most challenging courses. Others would take courses more suited to their ability and more relevant to potential employment opportunities.”
FT: “First, the deployment of AI technology across multiple business functions has grown exponentially in recent years. Machine learning algorithms, natural language processing and advanced data analytics have reached levels of sophistication that were unimaginable a decade ago. AI systems can perform complex tasks that require equally expert and agile decision-making, strategic planning and even creative problem-solving…Second, corporations are today expected to find ways to streamline processes, reduce costs and improve productivity at an unparalleled rate. Stakeholders increasingly expect immediate action to be taken when new information is presented. An AI COO could anticipate, plan and execute the pace and scale of operational efficiency across a corporate ecosystem in ways that a human doing the same job could not match…Third, AI’s superpower is its capacity for data-driven decision-making. Modern businesses generate vast quantities of data, and the ability to analyse this quickly and accurately is crucial. An AI COO would excel at this. For example, in areas such as marketing and sales, an AI COO could analyse full-cycle consumer behaviour patterns, predicting future trends and developing strategies to match.”
Alex Sima: “What if we structured AI agent interactions like the org charts of big tech companies? Here are some key takeaways I learned after organizing groups of AI agents as if they were in companies like Apple, Microsoft, Google, Amazon, and more: 1. Companies with multiple “competing” teams (i.e. competing to produce the best final product) like Microsoft and Apple outperformed centralized hierarchies. 2. Systems with single points of failure (for example, one leader making important decisions) like Google, Amazon, and Oracle underperformed. 3.Big-tech organizational structures had a modest but noticeable impact on problem-solving capability.” [via Arnold Kling]
FT: “Business writers of a certain age — John Kay is one, I am another — have lived through two major waves in the theory and practice of management during our professional lives. The first was the shareholder value movement of the last quarter of the 20th century in which incentivised business leaders relentlessly drove short-term profits to boost share prices. The second started when the knowledge economy brought in a younger, cooler crowd of business leaders in the years immediately before and after the millennium. Both waves now coexist, and Kay’s new book The Corporation in the 21st Century provides a brilliantly erudite account of them and their study. Using the decline of former corporate icons such as GE, ICI and Deutsche Bank as examples, the author’s message from the first wave is that financialisation works better for the financiers than the financed and that, taken to extremes, shareholder value was indeed — to paraphrase its one-time flag-bearer Jack Welch, GE’s hard-charging former chief executive — the dumbest idea in the world. And yet, although partially discredited and softened by wider stakeholder concerns, shareholder value remains influential in many boardrooms.”
NYTimes: “In 2019, one quarter of U.S. consumers shopped at Costco. Today it is nearly one-third. Costco is the third-largest retailer in the world, behind only Amazon and Walmart. But the success of Costco goes far beyond hoarding. The company has hacked the psyche of the American consumer, appealing to both the responsible-shopping superego (“Twelve cans of tuna for $18!”) and the buy-it-now id (“I deserve that 98-inch flat screen”).Ostensibly, Costco is a discount store, a place to save money and stretch your grocery dollar, but it is also an aspirational shopping experience, feeding that most American of appetites: conspicuous consumption.Few companies have greater influence over what we eat (or wear, or fuel our cars with, or use for personal hygiene). Costco dominates multiple categories of the food supply — beef, poultry, organic produce, even fine wine from Bordeaux, which it sells more of than any retailer in the world. It is the arbiter of survival for millions of producers, including more than a million cashew farmers in Africa alone. (Costco sells half the world’s cashews.) Its private label, Kirkland, generates more revenue than towering brands like Nike and Coca-Cola.”
