Strategy & Management

✒ The first SoftBank-backed startup to completely shutter. It’s a good reminder that a sizeable portion of venture firm’s portfolio companies can go bust.

✒ For consumers, Millennium Lifestyle Sponsorship is a magnificent deal, but this is not going to last forever.

✒ I wondered why I like this article so much until I realised who the author was.

✒ The desire for coherence is part of being human. It can prompt people to draw conclusions faster than they should.

✒ Two things come to mind: (1) the issue of “survivorship bias”; and (2) correlation does not imply causation.

✒ Measuring stakeholder returns.

✒ Zebra: zero-based budgeting.

✒ Another move to widen to net and woo young clients, after scrapping trading commission earlier this month.

✒ It is right to be unsentimental about ending failed experiments.

✒ “With hardware, especially if you’re Apple, there’s always a concern about going too cheap — devaluing the brand — but that’s not the case in services. Nobody is going to look at Apple TV+ as a cheap service; they just view it as affordable.”

✒ How might the UK government act if Sports Direct becomes the first major listed business to fail to appoint an auditor?

✒ Certain con artists really are artists — astonishingly charismatic, bold and versatile. But many cons, like many magic tricks, are uncomplicated exploitations of common human traits, often traits that in other contexts would be strengths rather than weaknesses.

✒ “Sports Direct has acquired a lot in recent years. Auditors have good reason to struggle with acquisitive companies, where annual comparisons are distorted by takeovers.”

✒ Take care.

✒ Creation of a bidding war.

✒ The experienced CFOs – those who have previously taken a startup past the $1 billion valuation – often don’t want to do it again.

✒ Choices of words other than “customers” are even more interesting.

✒ Such a great idea!

✒ Misconduct related to incorrect timing in recognising certain costs and rebates in its procurement operations.