fun facts

Oidashibeya.

Japanese workplace culture is the opposite of America’s at-will employment. “Japanese companies are barred both by societal and legal constraints that make it very difficult to fire employees.” So they invented “the oidashibeya, literally the banishment room or the expulsion room.” ~ learn […]

profiles of people

Byrne Hobart, the unlikely oracle.

“So, with the goal of attracting enough buzz to help him land writing gigs, he doubled down on writing his newsletter, then a substack on tech and finance, with an audience of around 1200, largely made of tech and startup […]

big ideas

Is nuclear power for east African countries a bad idea?

Hartmut Winkler is a Professor of Physics at University of Johannesburg and a contributor to the 2023 edition of the World Nuclear Industry Status Report. He thinks the planned nuclear plants for Uganda, Rwanda, Kenya and Tanzania are a bad […]

big ideas

The great cash-for-carbon hustle.

A long piece in The New Yorker digs deep into the carbon offsets market and one of its big players, South Pole. “Offsetting has been hailed as a fix for runaway emissions and climate change—but the market’s largest firm sold […]

thoughts of food

The problems with lab-grown chicken.

It’s the time of the business cycle when popular press takes shots at all the venture-funded concept that didn’t deliver on their promise. I feel ambivalent. Yes, the criticisms are often legit. But also, yes, it’s damn good that founders […]

under the microscope

A saliva test for glucose.

“Those re-engineered aptamers were then mounted on a gold electrode within an E-AB biosensor, which was subsequently immersed in saliva gathered from a group of test subjects. Not only was the sensor able to measure glucose concentrations in the liquid […]

retail therapy

Amazon CEO talks logistics.

“Jassy said 60% of shipments in Amazon’s top 60 metropolitan areas have been same-day or one-day deliveries in the first half of the year. Amazon has found that delivery speed meaningfully changes customers’ conversion rates and the rate at which […]