Monika Halan: “Personal income taxes, paid by less than 5% of the total [Indian] population, pulled 19% of the almost ₹45 trillion total budget burden in 2023-24, or just over 30% of the total tax revenue and over half the direct taxes collected…Between the rich and the poor, the middle is stuck…The income-tax-paying Indian has become the cash cow for the government.”
David Chapman: “Some venture capitalists say that startup success depends more on the cofounder relationship than any other factor. It can be their main reason for choosing to invest, or not, in a founding team. Conflicts between cofounders may be the most common reason for startup failure.” [via Arnold Kling]
WSJ on Skechers: “The shoe company—known for its hands-free slip-in styles—has grabbed the attention of enough people to become the third-largest footwear company in the world by sales. It is on track to net $10 billion in revenue by 2026, without achieving the coolness status that can juice demand for a brand. Skechers did it by capturing parts of the market that are largely neglected by its competitors. Nike has superstars. Hoka has tapped into hardcore runners. Tech bros are willing to pay up for On shoes. Skechers thrives on retirees looking for comfortable kicks and families looking for something more affordable for their children. “It’s almost the complete opposite of what the bigger brands do,” John Vandemore, Skechers finance chief, said in an interview. “We’re just a different player.””
Ethan Mollick: “How seriously should we take the claims of the AI labs that a flood of intelligence is coming? Even if we only consider what we’ve already seen – the o3 benchmarks shattering previous barriers, narrow agents conducting complex research, and multimodal systems creating increasingly sophisticated content – we’re looking at capabilities that could transform many knowledge-based tasks. And yet the labs insist this is merely the start, that far more capable systems and general agents are imminent. What concerns me most isn’t whether the labs are right about this timeline – it’s that we’re not adequately preparing for what even current levels of AI can do, let alone the chance that they might be correct…The flood of intelligence that may be coming isn’t inherently good or bad – but how we prepare for it, how we adapt to it, and most importantly, how we choose to use it, will determine whether it becomes a force for progress or disruption. The time to start having these conversations isn’t after the water starts rising – it’s now.”
Bloomberg: “Over the past month we have started testing AI-driven summaries for some longer stories on the Bloomberg Terminal. The software reads the story and produces three bullet points. Customers like it — they can quickly see what any story is about. Journalists are more suspicious. Reporters worry that people will just read the summary rather than their story. To which the honest answer is: Yes, a reader might well do that, but would you prefer that they wasted their time skimming through paragraphs on a topic that they are not actually interested in? To me it’s pretty clear; these summaries, used correctly, both help readers and save time for editors.”
