Here is an interesting article from the Wall Street Journal about the struggles of scaling Automation at UPS. (An interesting tidbit: UPS says about half its packages are processed through automated facilities today. At FedEx, 96% of ground packages move through automated…
Happy Thanksgiving, dear readers! In the modern consumer mythology, Thanksgiving – a uniquely American celebration – is a day for Turkey and Football, usually starring the underwhelming Cowboys who coincide with the decline of the NFL. But, all traditions are…
It increasingly appears that Amazon has chosen to split its second headquarters between Long Island City, NY and Crystal City, Northern VA — essentially locating a large portion of their upper management closer to the political and cosmopolitan classes (DC…
In the last Tesla post on Musk fans and naysayers, I had expressed cautious optimism about Tesla’s Model 3 production growth. There are some legitimate concerns about the process management within the Tesla Fremont plant. Much of the production planning problems…
Spectacles are back again. Earlier this year on this blog, I wrote about Snap’s disastrous over-commitment into Spectacles inventories, and subsequent difficulties in selling the items, as thousands of inventories piled up. I argued that their sales figures were…
Last April, I wrote about a whimsical Tesla analyst call. I had briefly mentioned three issues: (A) personality of the founder vs. personality of the firm (B) over-exuberance about Tesla before they could start making cars in scale. (C) cautious…
I was in Japan this summer and met some wonderful Wharton alumni. Of course, fulfilling a childhood dream, I also had a chance to take the Shinkansen (Bullet train) a few times. Of course, in these days of disrepair of…