Category: personal_noteS

Notre Dame Fire, VR

On 15 April 2019, shortly before 18:50 CEST, fire broke out beneath the roof of Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris. [Wikipedia]

When it comes to recover/rebuild the damaged masterpiece, the gaming industry will help.

The 2014 game ‘Assassin’s Creed Unity,’ set in Paris during the French Revolution, features a realistic 3D model of the historic house of worship. Caroline Miousse, an artist for the game, spent about two years perfecting the model of the cathedral that appears on gamers’ screens. [New York Post]

Notre-Dame Cathedral in the game | Source: theverge.com

Game developer Ubisoft also employs several staff historians to help dig up any extra details the development team might need. [The Verge]

The level of details not only makes Assassin’s Creed a great game, but also could help to save the history and the real world.

Another very helpful resource is from Vassar art historian Andrew Tallon’s work of exquisite 3D laser maps of every detail of Notre Dame.

In the past, we have many artworks digitalized but mainly for a paining or a sculpture I guess. The tragedy happened in Paris will remind us of many other things to be digitalized. In the future, VR games would probably need even more details and virtually serve as a permanent digital copy of our history. Expect much more “digitalization work” to be done in the next few years. We may even digitalize an event or a piece of time in the digital world.

It’s going to be similar to the “genome bank” to preserve what have existed in this world.

How [Languages] Disappear?

Just finished The World Until Yesterday by Jared Diamond this weekend and here is an excerpt I would really want to recommend, where you could literally replace “languages” with other words.

How do languages go extinct? … so too are there different ways of eradicating a language.

The most direct way is to kill almost all of its speakers…

The next most direct way to eradicate a language is not to kill its speakers, but instead to forbid them to use their language, and to punish them if they are caught doing so… the French government’s official policy is in effect to exclude the Breton language form primary and secondary schools…

But in most cases language loss proceeds by the more insidious process now under way at Rotokas… Young people in search of economics opportunity abandon their native-speaking villages and move the urban centers, where speakers of their own tribal language are greatly outnumbered by people from other tribal backgrounds, and where people needing to communicate with each other have no option except to speak the majority language…

Eventually, minority languages are spoken only by older people, until the last of them dies. Long before that end is reached, the minority language has degenerated through loss of its grammatical complexities, loss of forgotten native words, and incorporation of foreign vocabulary and grammatical features.

 

First Blackhole Picture And Copyright?

One big confirmation of our knowledge about the universe – the first picture of blackhole due to gravity is available.

target was a nearby galaxy dubbed M87 and its supermassive black hole, which packs the mass of six and half billion suns. Despite its size, the black hole is so far from Earth – 53 million light-years – that capturing the image took a telescope the size of the planet.

Meanwhile, a firm in China claimed the copyright of this picture and tried to charge fees for it.

The firm, called Visual China, is China’s largest stock images provider.

It shut its website and apologized on Friday after it falsely claimed copyright of images such as the first photo of a black hole and China’s national flag. [Reuters]

It is a time that China is doing more to protect intellectual property but company in this is embarrassing. It’s definitely not a representation of the “highest” level of IP protection in China, but it does show us that a lot of work needs to be done.

Finally, UBER S-1 Available

The S-1 of much anticipated Uber IPO is publicly available for the first time.

The valuation is said to be $90-100 billion, lower than previously reported.

That is also the reason that Lyft’s valuation is under pressure these days. It all makes that Lyft and Morgan Stanley have something to argue about… Lyft’s high valuation at IPO makes it difficult for Morgan Stanley and other banks to sell Uber. (and the pressure is much higher in such a big deal – $10 billion)

So relatively speaking, how much “higher” is Lyft valued?

  • Uber adjusted ebitda -1.85 billion vs. Lyft -944 million, ~2x
  • Uber revenue 11.27 billion vs. Lyft 2.16 billion, ~5x
  • Uber total trips 5.2 billion vs. Lyft 619 million, ~8x

Healthy Beverages Going Mainstream

La Croix may or may not be a one-time thing, but consumers’ tastes are shifting towards beverages that have less sugar and looks more healthy.

Image result for la croix
Source: today.com
Annual Sales (in millions) of La Croix’ Parent Company National Beverage | Source: GuruFocus.com

The overall market of carbonated & flavored bottled water is steadily growing.

Source: Quartz, Euromonitor

Established companies are preparing for the shift, which started decades ago when obesity became a thing in the US.

Source: Preventing Childhood Obesity: Health in the Balance (nap.edu)

Diet Coke was introduced almost 100 years after the original coke (1886 -> 1982). Coke Zero was introduced in 2005.

The pursuit for “healthy”, “organic” and “natural” has never stopped.

In 2008, The Coca-Cola Company purchased a 40% stake in Honest Tea at $43 million, and acquired the company in 2011.

Source: honesttea.com

Coca-cola also invested in ZICO Coconut water in 2009, and purchased a majority stake in ZICO Coconut water in 2012.

Source: zico.com

In 2017, Coke Zero has become Coke Zero Sugar with minor modifications (taste more like original coke).

Source: coca-colacompany.com

Meanwhile, Pepsi Co has made a series of investments and acquisitions. The most recent move is to buy SodaStream for $3.2 billion.

Image result for soda stream
Source: sodastream.com

I feel like consumers’ tastes in China need to catch-up…. at least a certain percentage of people should look for heathy brands. There is no well-recognized Chinese brand in this category (at least to me).

Middlemen’s Hard Time… PBMs

It has been more than a month since the 7 major drug manufacturers’ CEOs testified before the congress on February 26.

One of the “problems” that pharma CEOs complained about was pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) or the middleman problem.

In a healthcare system involving drugmakers, PBMs, pharmacies, insurers, patients, etc., one of the premises behind CVS’s $70 billion acquisition of Aetna and Cigna’s $54 billion acquisition of Express Scripts might actually make them vulnerable in front of regulators: their bargain power.

CVS Health, Cigna, McKesson, Rite Aid, Walgreens… companies with relatively large exposure between pharmaceutical companies and patients/payers are having a very hard time.

Source: Author, Yahoo Finance

What’s ahead – on March 13, the same committee (Senate Finance Committee) said it has called 5 major PBMs to testify on April 3 (tomorrow…)

    • Cigna
    • CVS
    • Humana
    • OptumRx
    • Prime Therapeutics

They must have been prepared.

Stay stunned.

An Excerpt From Bad Blood

I have talked about this as the most exciting part of Bad Blood with friends several times that I would like to read the original wording again and share it here.

“Meanwhile, behind the scenes, Holmes was trying another avenue to quash the story. In March, a month after I had started digging into the company, Theranos had closed another round of funding. Unbeknownst to me, the lead investor was Rupert Murdoch, the Australian-born media mogul who controlled the Journal’s parent company, News Corporation. Of the more than $430 million Theranos had raised in this last round, $125 million had come from Murdoch. That made him the company’s biggest investor.”

“By the time Mike Siconolfi and I had our conversation about the ancient art of Sicilian fishing in late July, Holmes had had three private meetings with Murdoch. The latest had taken place earlier that month, when she’d hosted him in Palo Alto and showed him the miniLab. During the visit, she’d raised my story, telling him the information I had gathered was false and would do great damage to Theranos if it was published. Murdoch had demurred, saying he trusted the paper’s editors to handle the matter fairly.

In late September, as we were getting close to publication, Holmes met with Murdoch a fourth time in his office on the eighth floor of the News Corporation building in Midtown Manhattan. My desk in the Journal’s newsroom was just three floors below, but I had no idea she was on the premises. She brought up my story with renewed urgency, hoping Murdoch would offer to kill it. Once again, despite the substantial investment he had at stake, he declined to intervene.”

– John Carreyrou. “Bad Blood.”

Besides other considerations, the “nonaction” by Mr. Murdoch is simply thrilling and kind of rare these days.

Lyft On Nasdaq

The first of a series of tech IPOs – Lyft debuted on Nasdaq today. With its stock priced at $72, Lyft is offering 32,500,000 shares of its Class A common stock, plus up to an additional 4,875,000 shares (raised $351 million in total).

The market cap excludes things like RSUs to be issued: 1) 77,390,807 shares of our Class A common stock reserved for future issuance under our equity compensation plans 2) 31,605,338 shares of our Class A common stock subject to RSUs outstanding, but for which the time-based vesting condition was not satisfied as of December 31, 2018 (including 15,065,349 shares of our Class A common stock subject to RSUs granted after December 31, 2018) 3) 7,037,379 shares of our Class A common stock issuable upon the exercise of options to purchase shares of our Class A common stock outstanding as of December 31, 2018 (weighted average $4.74 exercise price)

New Foreign Investment Law, Boao Forum for Asia 2019 And China Development Forum 2019

Following the closing (March 15) of National People’s Congress (NPC)’ 2019 annual meeting in Beijing, two important annual forums were held – China Development Forum 2019 (March and Boao Forum for Asia 2019

One of the major progress made during NPC’s annual meeting is the approval of the new foreign investment law #中华人民共和国外商投资法 (original link here)

The law was first introduced as a draft in 2015 and will come into effect on January 1, 2020.

The new foreign investment law will replace the “three foreign capital laws” – Law on Sino-Foreign Equity Joint Ventures #中外合资经营企业法, Law on Foreign-Capital Enterprises #外资企业法 and Law on Sino-Foreign Cooperative Joint Ventures #中外合作经营企业法, which were introduced in 1979, 1986 and 1988 respectively. They were updated along the way but structural/fundamental changes won’t be easy. (you can’t expect a law to be efficient and perfect after 30-40 years.. in a fast-changing environment)

China Development Forum is more focused on China. And of course, the newly-passed foreign investment law was discussed and introduced to all the CEOs/managements from foreign companies among others.

Again, on Boao Forum For Asia, Premier Li Keqiang reemphasized the plan to make detailed regulations to enforce the effective implementation of the foreign investment law.

Updates:

Recently adjusted (cut) government subsidies for electric EV in China

EV is probably one of the most mature new market. It is still something new for most families, but it seems to me that the global EV technology readiness is pretty much similar to that of iPhone in 2013-2015 (iPhone 5S – iPhone 6S).

The industry is more likely to make incremental improvements over the next decade. It won’t be easy in terms of technological progress; it will also need much more effort/thinking in terms of commercial strategies.

One of the latest sign is the most recent subsidy cut for “new energy vehicles”, dated March 26 in Beijing #财建〔2019〕138号.

The reduction in subsidies has been outlined as early as April 2015 #财建〔2015〕134号, in which 1. the subsidies for 2016 was announced and 2. projected that certain vehicles’ 2017-2018 subsidies shall be 20% lower & 3. 2019-2020 subsidies shall be 40% lower, among other things.

2017－2020年除燃料电池汽车外其他车型补助标准适当退坡，其中：2017－2018年补助标准在2016年基础上下降20%，2019－2020年补助标准在2016年基础上下降40%。

#财建〔2015〕134号

Here is the list of updates in the following years:

#财建〔2016〕958号 – Announced Dec 30, 2016; Effective Jan 1, 2017

#财建〔2018〕18号 – Announced Feb 12, 2018; Effective Feb 12, 2018; Grace Period till Jun 11, 2018, during which passengers would follow the previous program x 40%, trucks would follow the previous program x 70%, fuel cells would follow the previous program

#财建〔2019〕138号 – Announced Mar 26, 2019; Effective Mar 26, 2019; Grace Period till Jun 25, 2019, during which vehicles unqualified for 2019 standard shall follow previous program x 10%, qualified for 2019 standard shall follow previous program x 60%, policies for fuel cells and buses will announce separately

A summary of national government (not including regional) subsidy base for battery electric vehicles

More restrictions are added in 2018 and 2019, especially in terms of technical standards.

Smaller EV manufacturers with little R&D resources will need to restructure or pivot. Profitability will be an issue for many companies; but a needed test to form a mature market that can run itself and benefit most stakeholders.