1 Alphabet to Warren Buffett, conglomerates are back
(David Hellier in The Guardian) Conglomerates have been distinctly
unfashionable among investors for decades. But that may be about to change. Just
as Warren Buffett put the final touches to a $37.2bn deal to add a
nuts-and-bolts maker to his sprawling Berkshire Hathaway empire last week,
Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin unveiled a restructuring that
borrowed liberally from the sage of Omaha’s rulebook.
Suddenly, the word “conglomerate” is on everybody’s
lips. Google’s founders have always admired Buffett. Google’s IPO letter to
shareholders in 2004 disclosed that it was inspired by the octogenarian’s
essays in Berkshire’s annual reports. When the technology group announced a
restructuring last week, with various businesses operating under the umbrella
of a holding company called Alphabet, it was no surprise that analysts detected
the subconscious influence of Buffett.
Google is proposing a structure in which the
profitable search business funnels some profits into its more speculative
ventures like driverless cars or Calico, which aims to extend the human
lifespan. There are those who feel the Buffett analogy is not fair on the
investor. His businesses – from brickmaking to clothing and insurance – might
be run under a similar structure to the one being described by Page, but they
are expected to be profitable in the medium term.
He is not trying to develop new businesses but
reinvigorate old ones. And his model relies on well-timed acquisitions.
“Google’s Alphabet sounds like a 21st-century Berkshire Hathaway, but with a
lot of very large venture bets,” Jeff Weiner, LinkedIn’s chief executive,
tweeted last week.
“Startups remain private for a reason,” says Scott
DeRue, professor of management at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of
Business. “The primary reason is that management in startups can take full
risks and be free to make errors. The market is going to increase the pressure
on the moonshot businesses under this structure.”
DeRue thinks the newer businesses under the Alphabet
umbrella will not thrive without strong-willed executives driving them on. “If
they can withstand the market pressure and maintain a high level of
exploration, then it could work,” he believes. But that is a big if.
2 When CEOs take a break (BBC) Over the long weeks
of summer even the busiest executives want to spend time away from their
office. So what happens if you run your own firm? You might have the big salary
that comes with the top job, but little time to enjoy it. Can CEOs ever release
their grip and truly take a break?
It’s all about strategy. It depends on your strategy
for running a productive company, according to former engineer Francis Irving.
Irving, who runs his own company, feels that small amounts of holiday time can
be a good way of testing or future-proofing your business. Can it survive with
the team you have in place?
Just don’t disconnect. Designer Wolfgang Bremer
thinks the people at the top do “take vacation like anybody else,” but is sure
“they don't just switch off their phones, close their laptop-lids, etc while
they’re away.” Because of their role at the top, they must do regular calls and
phone conferences, check their emails and respond regularly, and actually work
during their vacation.
Taking a breather. Gam Dias described what it’s like
being a start-up chief executive officer in need of a break. “Let's say you're
cooking dinner and you have 4 pans on the stove. How can you sneak out of the
kitchen and maybe even run to the store without ruining the meal or getting it
to the table late?” he wrote.
Dias added that you have to ensure everything will
continue to cook “that the ingredients you need to use as soon as you are back
are ready, then you take a deep breath, turn the burners down slightly and you
do your best to make sure that nothing is going to go wrong while you are out.”
He wrote that because, as CEO, you have so many
projects on a critical path and so few resources to complete them, it’s even
more important to get away on a very rare occasion “even if it just to breathe
and keep all of your personal relationships in order”.
3 Emojis spell the end for abbreviations (Christian Science
Monitor/Khaleej Times) Step aside 'LOL'. 'Haha' and emojis are killing the once
popular abbreviation, says latest Facebook study. Have you typed "LOL" in the past
week? If so, you might be a 28-year-old woman from Phoenix, Ariz. A new
Facebook study aimed at dissecting the demographics of "haha"-ers,
"LOL"-ers, "hehe"-ers, and emoji enthusiasts has found
distinct patterns of usage within different genders, ages, and geographic
locations.
Out of the 15 per cent of people who used some form
of e-laughter to express amusement, 51 per cent of people chose the standard
"haha." Thirty-three percent relied on emojis, and 13per cent
channelled their vaguely mischievous side by "hehe"ing.
"LOL," the iconic acronym for "laughing out loud," brought
up the rear with a mere 1.9 per cent.
"LOL," once the face of teen textspeak, is
now favoured primarily by the oldest demographic of Facebook laughers, with a
median age of about 28. Emoji smiley faces are used most frequently by the
youngest subset of Facebookers, typically those in their teens and early
twenties. "Haha" and "hehe" occupy the space in between.
The study found clear preferences when it comes to
gender as well. Women are more likely to use emojis and "LOL"; men
more likely to type out a "haha" or "hehe."
Within these categories of e-laughter, there are
additional nuances. "Haha" and "hahaha" are far more common
than "ha" or "hahahaha," and the same pattern holds true
for "hehe" and "hehehe." In an article for The New Yorker
titled "Hahaha vs. Hehehe," Sarah Larson describes individual
"ha"s as building blocks "with which we can construct more
elaborate hilarity."
But how closely do these levels of e-laughter correlate
to real-life laughter? In the Los Angeles Times, Michael Krikorian argues that
expressions such as "LOL" and "haha" have evolved from
their literal meanings into "texting's go-to replies, a vaguely
complimentary, vaguely condescending way to acknowledge a text has been
received."
"Walk down any street and people have their
heads down, staring at their phones, texting or looking at texts," he
writes. "None of them is laughing out loud. They aren't even smiling. They
might be typing 'haha' or 'LOL', but they are not living the text, not texting
the truth."
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