Deception

Maximizing the Value for Shareholders Suing a company for not following its code of ethics and therefore misleading investors doesn’t fly, but Signet Jewelers settled for $240m . Signet’s 70k female employees sued for discrimination, but the class action is yet to be resolved. Tom Toro’s New Yorker cartoon : Yes, the planet got destroyed. But for a beautiful moment in time we created a lot of value for shareholders....

Short Term Loans A common narrative for loan providers is financial inclusion. 69% of global adult population is not covered by credit bureaus. Using non-traditional data (e.g. text messages, location, contacts, call logs), more people can get scored. If only \(x\%\) of people pay you back, then \(\frac{x}{100}(1 + r) \ge 1 \) suggests \(r \ge \frac{100}{x} - 1 \). If \(75\%\) tend to pay back, \(r = 33\frac{1}{3} \%\)....

How Dentists Rip Us Off. William Ecenbarger. digitalsmiledesign.com . Feb 1, 1997. This piece was brought up in “Is Dentistry a Science?" ( summary ). Looks like this piece has done its rounds in dentist online spaces. Ecenbarger pitch: moving into the area; had done gum surgery; had a direct-reimbursement program to cover expenses; interested in good oral health; no desire for cosmetic improvements...

Is Dentistry a Science? Ferris Jabr. www.theatlantic.com . May 1, 2019. Cochrane Oral Health reviews dental procedures in a systematic manner. Unfortunately, most of the reviews don’t find substantive support for dental interventions. There is currently no substantive evidence for: binannual cleanings, fluoridation reducing tooth decay in adults; regular flossing combating plaque (gum disease? probably); preventative wisdom teeth removal; tooth-colored resin instead of metal amalgam fillings; crown vs....

Product Differentiation and Price Discrimination Product differentiation seeks to distinguish a product from a competing product to make it more attractive to a specific target market. Price discrimination occurs when the same goods/services are sold at different prices from the same company. The Captain Samuel Vimes “Boots” theory of socio-economic unfairness: the rich man who bought the high quality $50 pair of boots would still be using them in 10 years, while the poor man who buys the $10 pair would have spent $100 on boots in the same time, and still be worse off....

The Submarine. Paul Graham. www.paulgraham.com . Apr 1, 2005. Many people rely on social proof to form opinions; therein lies the power of PR. PR firms are not dishonest for they need good reputation with news outlets. But PR firms serve overworked reporters with selective truths. The firms feed the same story to different publications at once. Readers see similar stories in multiple places and assume a new trend has come....

U.S. Files Criminal Charges Against Elizabeth Holmes and Ramesh Balwani. John Carreyrou. www.wsj.com . news.ycombinator.com . Jun 15, 2018. (Ask HN) Holmes has 200 Patents. If tech didn't work, why not noticed? news.ycombinator.com . Jun 18, 2018. Theranos Lessons. Morgan Housel. www.collaborativefund.com . Jun 19, 2019. This CEO is Out for Blood. Roger Parloff. www.fortune.com ....

Layoffs at Watson Health Reveal IBM’s Problem with AI. Eliza Strickland. spectrum.ieee.org . news.ycombinator.com . Jun 25, 2018. Jefferies gives IBM Watson a Wall Street reality check. John Mannes. techcrunch.com . news.ycombinator.com . Jul 13, 2017. IBM acquired Phytel, Explorys and Truven for their troves of healthcare data and proprietary analytics. From 2010 to 2015, IBM has spent +$15bn and Watson is still not profitable....

Luxottica - Queen of the Seven Kingdoms Luxottica owns and licenses Armani, Brooks Brothers, Burberry, Chanel, Coach, DKNY, Dolce & Gabbana, Michael Kors, Oakley, Oliver Peoples, Persol, Polo Ralph Lauren, Ray-Ban, Tiffany, Valentino, Vogue and Versace. Italy’s Luxottica also runs EyeMed Vision Care, LensCrafters, Pearle Vision, Sears Optical, Sunglass Hut and Target Optical. It also merged with the world’s leading maker of prescription eyeglass lenses and contact lenses, to form EssilorLuxottica....

The Shady Economics of Buy-One-Get-One Free Deals. Zachary Crockett. thehustle.co . Feb 17, 2019. BOGO goods are usually low-demand, non-efficient, lacking in quality and/or close to the expiration date. The BOGO deal is usually a 50% discount off of the manufacturer’s suggested retail price (MSRP). And oftentimes, this price is artificially marked up to begin with. MyPillow offered BOGO deal on their pillows, but really just doubled the price of the first pillow....

Innovation Africa & Water Availability Bring in Israeli solar panels and drip irrigation. Pump water from the large reservoirs below. Cost $7,000. Adapting to community: 6-8 weeks on committees, bank accounts; mobile charging stations and barbershops using solar panels for sustainability. Can’t sell the water, but you can subsidize it with complementary products. Set up remote monitoring with real time stats in order to schedule maintenance. Honorable Mentions Push Party by MSCHF is valued at $200m, led by The Founders Fund....

A collection of instances in which I believed something that wasn’t true. A reminder to read not to believe, but to weigh and consider . The Four Color Theorem does not claim that 4 colors suffice to color a planar map. Instead, 4 colors are sufficient to color any planar graph so that no two vertices connected by an edge are colored with the same color. For any \(n\), there is a map that requires at least \(n\) colors....

AT&T to pay $60m in settlement for slowing cellphone data on unlimited plans. www.reuters.com . Nov 5, 2019. Complaint filed in 2014 by the FTC: AT&T charged smartphone users for ‘unlimited’ data plans, but throttled them after ~2GB within a month. AT&T: None of these allegations were ever proved in court. We were fully prepared to defend ourselves, but decided settling was in the best interests of consumers....