What I read this week...
Week 101
STRATEGY & MANAGEMENT
How Walmart became a tech giant—and took over the world (The Economist)
Lessons for Reliance?
Khosla Ventures among VCs experimenting with AI-infused roll-ups of mature companies (Tech Crunch)
“Venture capitalists have always focused on investing in companies that leverage technology to either disrupt established industries or create entirely new business categories. But some VCs are starting to flip the script on their investing styles. Rather than funding startups, they are acquiring mature businesses — such as call centers, accounting firms, and other professional service firms —and optimizing them with artificial intelligence to serve more customers through automation. This strategy, often likened to private equity roll-ups, is being employed by firms such as General Catalyst, Thrive Capital, and solo VC Elad Gil…”
90% of institutions ‘taking action’ on stablecoins: Fireblocks survey (Cointelegraph)
“As traditional cross-border systems are hampered by higher costs, delays and other inefficiencies, stablecoins have emerged as a strategic solution in emerging markets’ business-to-business (B2B) settings… Banks use stablecoins for a competitive advantage, to reduce friction and meet customer expectations…”
Nestle is trying to spin off its bottled water business (Sherwood)
“The move comes as part of Nestle’s wider strategy to slim down, with new CEO Laurent Freixe trying to focus on just 30 or so of the bigger names in the food giant’s portfolio of some 2,000-brands — including Nescafé coffee, Purina pet food, Lactogen baby formula, and Kit-Kat chocolate bars, among many others….”
Legal startup Harvey AI in talks to raise funding at $5 billion valuation (Reuters)
INDIA
Cricbuzz may give Dream11 real-money gamers. But Times Internet is the real winner (The Ken)
“In FY23, Dream Sports made Rs 6,590 crore ($772 million) in revenue—66% higher than the previous year—and Rs 223 crore in net profit. It had projected gross revenue of close to $1 billion in FY24. For a company of this scale, it seems an odd decision to take just a 15% stake…”
Is Asian Paints losing its shine? (Finshots)
Strategic Musings
Gall’s Law: “A complex system that works invariably evolved from a simple system that worked. A complex system designed from scratch never works and cannot be patched up to make it work.”
Caught my eye…
