Thursday Oct.10, 2019

The tech industry has these 3 chemists to thank

_"This Lithium-ion battery is legit"_

Hey Snackers,

The new magical rainbow dolphin-infused Lisa Frank hotel room is into warm and fuzzy vibes. The latest round of trade talks between the US and China isn't.

Stocks rose Wednesday on hopes the geopolitical negotiation was off to a friendly start — then they fell going into Thursday on word it wasn't.

Hired

Bed Bath & Beyond doesn't know if it has enough time

Just sign here, here, and here... and you can run Bed Bath & Beyond. Mark Tritton will become its new CEO — he tied on his apron and plans to revitalize the chain that sponsored your dorm room starting in November. He was previously Chief Merchandising Officer at Target, which is living the opposite life of Bed Bath over the last 5 years:

Target stock is up 80%.
Bed Bath & Beyond is down 84% — that's punctuated by 10 straight quarters of falling sales and new plans to close 60 stores.
But the stock surged 20% on word it's got a new leader.

Retail ninja-ness... While everyone is online this and ecommerce that lately, Mark boldly revolutionized Target's physical stores:

Whisperer of Digitally Native Brands: Millennial-fueled Harry's razors, Casper mattresses, or Quip toothbrushes you can only get online? Mark convinced these startups to sell exclusive stuff in Target stores, which got you in Target stores.
Creator of Innovative Private Labels: Inspired by all those above startups, Mark launched Goodfellow guys' apparel, Sun Squad party furniture, and Everspring sustainable home-cleaning products — all brands subtly owned by Target.

If you want to see where Bed Bath & Beyond is going... look at what Mark's been up to. Leadership changes like this aren't just about new business cards and a fancy parking spot — every new exec represents their own vision and strategy. Mark could bring the same tricks that worked at Target over to his new office (it's just got more towels).

Charged

Lithium-ion Battery inventors snag Nobel Prizes for enabling the mobile revolution

Our hypothesis: These 3 are why you have a smartphone... The Results: Confirmed. John B. Goodenough, M. Stanley Whittingham, and Akira Yoshino were just awarded some Swedish kroner (almost $1M worth total) and the Nobel Prize in chemistry. They invented the Lithium-ion Battery — in the 1980s — and it's still used today. We'll let The Academy explain:

“They have laid the foundation of a wireless, fossil fuel-free society, and are of the greatest benefit to humankind."

Unplug... The Li-ion battery allowed electronic things to be portable — it was way lighter, more durable, and held greater energy than earlier battery options that were the size of your foot. It was also less likely to ignite and explode, which is a major plus. This single battery powers whatever you're reading this on, along with all the following:

Wireless tech: iPhone, Amazon Ring cameras, laptop computers. Anything with a battery icon and a charging cord probably uses them.
Electric cars: Without the Lithium-ion battery relaxing in the chassis, a Tesla's range would only extend as far as your longest extension cord.
Renewable energy: The wind and sun generate electricity, but we need batteries to store it for when they're MIA.

Who made money?... Goodenough and his university decided not to patent Lithium-ion tech. Mr. Yoshino commercialized it at Sony in 1991, where it made Walkman and video camcorders a thing. Sony's batteries also powered the 1st gen of laptop computers. But no one company controls the tech, so the batteries are all up in our lives today, keeping us glued constantly to devices.

What else we’re Snackin’

Loudly: Tesla owners will be able to replace their car horns with fart and goat noises soon, because they can
Fetch: Uber is launching Uber Pets — an extra $3-$5 for a ride guarantees the driver will let Fido chill on the back seat
Multi-task: Walgreens partners up with FedEx so you can leave your returns off at the drugstore
Carbon: UPS is dropping $450M over the next 3 years to buy 6K natural gas-powered delivery trucks
Streamed: Roku jumps 9% on a prediction from an analyst that its streaming userbase would triple in size by 2022
Cave: Apple is removing a police-tracking app that was used by Hong Kong protestors

Thursday

Earnings from Tootsie Roll and Delta

Disclosure: Authors of this Snacks own shares of Tesla and Amazon

IS: 977541

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Tangential remarks

Nicolai Tangen, the CEO who holds the purse strings of Norway’s $1.6 trillion sovereign wealth fund, thinks that his fellow Europeans don’t quite stack up to US employees when it comes to pure hustle, telling the Financial Times in a recent interview that there is a difference in “the general level of ambition” and that “the Americans just work harder”.

Tangen has clearly been putting his money — or more specifically Norway’s — where his mouth is: the sprawling Norwegian oil fund, now one of the largest investors on the planet, has been pumping more capital into its US holdings in the past decade, while decreasing its investment into European entities.

The troublesome news for our European readers? Tangen might be onto something. According to data from the OECD, American workers are putting in almost 60 hours a year more than the weighted average for OECD nations… a benchmark that workers from countries in the European Union are already ~180 hours shy of.

Europeans ‘less hard-working’ than Americans | FT

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Sales of what are up 136% since 2019?

Don't be a sucka

$70B

Alphabet shares are soaring in the after-market session, with a initial jump of more than 10% implying a gain of upwards of about $200B in market value when the stock opens tomorrow morning.

Google’s parent company crushed earnings expectations, initiated a cash dividend for the first time, and authorized a fresh $70B in share repurchases for good measure. The market likes it very much.

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No, Apple hasn’t cut its Vision Pro production estimates in half

Quite a few news outlets are reporting that Apple thinks it’s only going to sell 400,000 to 450,000 Vision Pros in 2024, compared a “market consensus” of 700,000 to 800,000. They’re all citing a note from Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo.

Obviously there’s no question that Apple’s $3,500 face computer will have a limited audience and could be a huge flop, but this also doesn’t seem like accurate news.

The issue is that 1) this 400,000 number isn’t new. Back in July of 2023, the Financial Times reported that Apple planned to make fewer than 400,000 units in 2024, reducing its initial projections of 1M units, citing two people close to Apple and, the Chinese contract manufacturer assembling the device. 2) It's unclear who was estimating 700,000-800,000 Vision Pros in the first place, but it appears that it was Ming-Chi Kuo himself?