WSJ: “By leveraging the rabid fandom of its customers through a business model based on uber-scarcity, the storied Italian company is enjoying a new golden age. Following an almost tenfold increase in the stock since its initial public offering almost a decade ago, Ferrari is now worth $90 billion, making it the most valuable car company in Europe—despite delivering just 13,752 vehicles last year…Ferrari has won the European prize by channeling similarities with a more reliable peer group: French handbag makers. “We are not—we are not—an automotive company,” said Chief Executive Officer Benedetto Vigna in a recent interview in Maranello, the city in northern Italy where Ferrari is based. “We are a luxury company that is also doing cars.””
Shane Parrish: “Most people quit before they reach their best work. Excellence lives in doing a bit more than others.”
NYTimes on Germany: “From the 1970s on, successive governments, whether led by Social Democrats or Christian Democrats, had plenty of resources to invest in long-term growth. But they did so only halfheartedly. Hoping to mitigate the impact of deindustrialization, they subsidized old industries, rescued failing corporations from bankruptcy, kept workers in blue-collar jobs and provided generous benefits to all those whose services were no longer needed. That’s how Germany, unlike some of its peers, maintained a strong manufacturing base. The very real fear now is that cars and machinery — the sectors that carried the economy for the past few decades — are taking the same path steel and coal did a long time ago. A turnaround is possible, of course. Germany’s industrial giants could redouble their efforts in robotics, artificial intelligence and, yes, low-carbon technologies. But they’d also have to shed jobs and close or relocate units that aren’t competitive anymore. Something similar can be said for the German economy as a whole. The return to winning ways isn’t impossible, but it won’t be easy. It may, in fact, require a large dose of disruption.” WSJ: “Today, Germany has gone from paragon to pariah. Its economic model is broken, its self-confidence shattered and its political landscape fractured.”
Satya Nadella: “I was thinking, for example, today if I look at it, we are very email heavy. I get in in the morning, and I’m like, man my inbox is full, and I’m responding, and so I can’t wait for some of these Copilot agents to automatically populate my drafts so that I can start reviewing and sending. But I already have in Copilot at least ten agents, which I query them different things for different tasks. I feel like there’s a new inbox that’s going to get created, which is my millions of agents that I’m working with will have to invoke some exceptions to me, notifications to me, ask for instructions. So at least what I’m thinking is that there’s a new scaffolding, which is the agent manager. It’s not just a chat interface. I need a smarter thing than a chat interface to manage all the agents and their dialogue. That’s why I think of this Copilot, as the UI for AI, is a big, big deal. Each of us is going to have it. So basically, think of it as: there is knowledge work, and there’s a knowledge worker. The knowledge work may be done by many, many agents, but you still have a knowledge worker who is dealing with all the knowledge workers. And that, I think, is the interface that one has to build.”
FT: “Mobile phones have now surpassed diamonds as the country’s biggest product export. And although only around 15 per cent of Apple’s iPhones are currently made in India, this is expected to increase to 25 per cent by 2027, according to JPMorgan and Bank of America analysts. Globally, the company shipped some 232mn iPhones in 2024, according to the International Data Corporation…On the ground, the signs of how far India has come are clear. Bank of America’s Mohan points specifically to the manufacturing of the iPhone 16 Pro: “The fact that India is now making Apple’s most advanced iPhone model is testament to the fact that they have been able to ramp successfully.””
