WSJ: “Sneakers have morphed from the barefoot minimalism of a decade ago to towering platforms engineered today to give runners both speed and comfort. But shoe companies aren’t done yet. The latest innovations include smart shoes that record information about a runner’s gait and stride—details that could one day be used to personalize footwear and ward off injuries that can be trade-offs of running in high-performance shoes.”
Bloomberg: “When Insight Partners tried to raise another $20 billion flagship fund, it found itself offering mea culpas. Months into the campaign, the software-focused private equity firm conceded it had invested too quickly before interest rates rose, buying assets near a market peak. Executives vowed to focus on returning capital. But contrition wasn’t enough for some clients. Even after trimming ambitions to $12.5 billion to $15 billion for an era of fewer deals, the firm’s 13th fund closed in January with about $11.5 billion. Such struggles reflect tough times for private equity. After a half-century of meteoric growth, buyout firms are facing challenges at every step of their life cycle: Attractive takeover targets are scarcer, financing costs are up and it’s harder to cash out old investments and deliver the robust returns once promised to pension managers, endowments, foundations and wealthy individuals.”
NYTimes reviews ‘When Everyone Knows That Everyone Knows …,’ by Steven Pinker: “What fuels revolution, social embarrassment and public acclaim? It’s Common Knowledge.”
Bloomberg on SAP (via Mint): “The surge in sales coming from the cloud transition is going to start declining in 2027, when SAP has said it will begin rolling back support for the older software. Clients need to move over their systems by then, so the bulk of the spending will come in the next few years. After that, SAP will have to offer new services to keep up its growth.The company is targeting artificial intelligence applications as its future, but faces competition from virtually every other tech giant in the world. Many customers are already unhappy with the expensive cloud transformation. Analysts at tech consulting firm Gartner reported concerns this year that the company is losing market share for some newer products outside of its core business and alienating clients because of its hard-nosed sales tactics.”
