"Instant Pot and Pyrex Maker Instant Brands Files for Bankruptcy"
Instant Brands, maker of the Instant Pot pressure cooker and Pyrex glassware, filed for bankruptcy on Monday after high interest rates and waning access to credit hit its cash position and made its debts unsustainable.
The company listed estimated assets and liabilities of as much as $1 billion in a bankruptcy petition filed in Texas. The Chapter 11 filing allows Instant Brands to keep operating while it seeks approval of a plan to repay creditors.
The company is slated to receive around $133 million in debtor-in-possession financing to fund itself through the bankruptcy process, the company said in a statement.
"After successfully navigating the Covid-19 pandemic and the global supply chain crisis, we continue to face additional global macroeconomic and geopolitical challenges that have affected our business," Ben Gadbois, the company's president and chief executive officer, said in a statement.
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An excellent quote. But it isn't just production engineering. It's every piece of a corporate machine. The more people who are able to control the inherent flames of industry, means the better the business can run because fewer hours are lost dealing with crises.
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The trichromats are indeed better at finding brightly colored fruit, but the dichromats surpass them at finding insects disguised as leaves and sticks. Without a riot of colors to confuse or distract them, they’re better at detecting borders and shapes, and seeing through camouflage.
Fascinating stuff from An Immense World as I read last night. Both for the animal vision insights, but it also made me think about living in this era of big data and the similarities to where businesses with big data are trying to be better at seeing trends but sometimes they might miss the smaller events which make up these trends.
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Microsoft to invest $10 billion in OpenAI
What a dark omen this feels like for the future of white collar workers, where Microsoft laid off 10,000 people and then makes this sort of investment. Sends a very clear signal to employees.
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"Indie bookshop numbers hit 10-year high in 2022 defying brutal UK retail year"
You love to see it. Here's hoping the trend continues.
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A look at the business of Costco
But how can Costco turn a profit if its products sell at a lower price than at other retailers? The answer involves its unique business model. According to the Motley Fool, nearly 80% of the company's net income is generated by its two different types of membership fees: a regular $60 per year membership fee, and a $120 per year "executive" membership fee with a 2% cash back reward on products.
These fees help Costco in two ways. First — and most importantly — they ensure that the company receives a steady stream of revenue, even when in-store purchases drop. During the COVID-19 pandemic, which temporarily forced physical stores to close, this was especially helpful. Membership fees also give customers an incentive to continue shopping at Costco in order to get their money's worth.
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A list of ambitious things done fast
Some examples of people quickly accomplishing ambitious things together.
My favorites from the list:
The Spirit of St. Louis. In 1927, Donald Hall and Charles Lindbergh designed and built Spirit in 60 days. "To determine the amount of fuel the plane would need, Lindbergh and Hall drove to the San Diego Public Library at 820 E St. Using a globe and a piece of string, Lindbergh estimated the distance from New York to Paris. It came out to 3,600 statute miles, which Hall calculated would require 400 gallons of gas."
It's notable to me because this one seems like you would take so much longer. But the reality is that the Spirit was not overly complex.
The Berlin Airlift. On 24 June 1948, the Soviet Union initiated a blockade of Berlin. Two days later, the Berlin Airlift commenced. Over the following 463 days, the US, the UK, and France flew 277,000 flights with 300 aircraft to deliver the supplies required to support 2.2 million Berlin residents. On average, a supply aircraft landed every 2 minutes for 14 months. As part of this effort, Tegel airport was built. Planning started in July 1948; construction started August 5 1948; the first landing took place November 5 1948 (92 days after construction started); the official opening of the airport took place December 5 1948.
This one's speed isn't as surprising but is impressive. The politics should have taken longer except that the Soviets were so established as "the enemy" and that the logistics were, largely, straightforward once you established the supply chain.
These two are both more in my domains of understanding:
JavaScript. Brendan Eich implemented the first prototype for JavaScript in 10 days, in May 1995. It shipped in beta in September of that year.
Git. Linus Torvalds started working on Git on April 3 2005. It was self-hosting 4 days later. On April 20 2005, 17 days after work commenced, Linux 2.6.12-rc3 was publicly released with Git.
Both are impressive for the inherent complexity and power of the tools.
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Microsoft reportedly interested in buying Netflix
I can't say I love the idea as we continue to see bigger and bigger monolithic corporations.
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GE bought out the ad space in the printed NYT today to educate folks about GE's three-way split
The New York Times on Tuesday unveiled a unique version of its weekday print paper featuring more than two dozen ads from just one advertiser — General Electric.
Why it matters: It's the first time in the paper's 171-year history that any advertiser has gotten to own all of The Times' print real estate exclusively — in addition to most of its premier digital advertising real estate.
The seven-figure campaign centers on GE's core message of focus, as it begins a plan to split into three publicly-traded companies: GE HealthCare, GE Aerospace and GE Vernova (energy).
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Demystifying the concept of financial leverage in business
Every business has a balance sheet, which contrasts its assets (valuable things it owns) against liabilities (valuable things it owes to other people). The difference between assets and liabilities is equity.
Financial businesses will frequently have non-financial assets and liabilities. Ignore those for the sake of simplicity. Ignore the nice building, the computers, the payroll due on Friday for work which has already been completed. Focus just on the financial assets and liabilities, things like "mortgages our bank owns" (asset) and "deposits from customers" (liability).
Leverage is the ratio of your liabilities to your equity. Simple division. Fourth grade math. If you have $110 million in assets and $100 million in liabilities you, by subtraction, have $10 million in equity against your $100 million in liabilities. You are said to be levered 10:1.
The entry also used a word I had to look up, "impecunious." - From context and also looking at the word I thought it was about "having no money," which as it turns out, I was right.
This post was clearly inspired by the current events around FTX and what happened to cause its apparently sudden filing for Chapter 11. The author, who works for Stripe, goes on to discuss his own bit of interactions with Crypto currencies at the time, turning a small profit because of the chaos and opportunism and an understanding of the financial mechanisms at play.
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Regal Cinemas' owners Cineworld are reportedly filing for bankruptcy in the UK
As reported by The Wall Street Journal, the London-based Cineworld is expected to file for bankruptcy in both the UK and US having amassed $4.8 billion in debt. It operates more than 9,000 screens in 751 locations around the world, including Picturehouse and Cineworld cinemas in the UK and Ireland, Cinema City in Europe, Yes Planet in Israel, and Regal Cinemas in the U.S. It is the second largest theater chain in the world, following AMC, which has weathered post-pandemic issues partly because of becoming a meme stock.
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Chicken Soup for the Soul bought Redbox - yes really
Rouhana’s company has been on a buying spree for a few years now, strategically acquiring video assets that weren’t able to fully flourish under their previous owners.
- This includes the ad-supported video pioneer Crackle, which Chicken Soup for the Soul Entertainment acquired from Sony in 2019.
- Other CSSE brands include Popcornflix, Frightpix and Truli. “Each one of these has got its own sort of voice,” Rouhana said.
- By adding Redbox to the fold, Rouhana is gaining access not only to 36,000 DVD kiosks, but also a sizeable digital rental business, a FAST service with 145 streaming channels and a customer loyalty program with 40 million members — something he wants to use as a marketing vehicle for the company’s other services, as well as a source of insights.
- “People do have a life outside of Netflix,” Rouhana told me. By learning about the things people are looking for at DVD kiosks, he hopes to gain better insights to fine-tune personalized recommendations. “We’re very interested in data,” he said.
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JetBlue is buying Spirit Airlines
I've heard of moving quick but this seems a bit wild. Just yesterday news of the Spirit + Frontier deal dying. And today JetBlue swoops in. I can only assume more conversations were had in the lead up to this.
I've never flown Spirit (or Frontier for that matter.) I've flown JetBlue once or twice, it was fine. Also, I've come to realize that I had mixed up when Alaskan Airlines bought Virgin; for some reason I was thinking they had bought JetBlue.
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On The Uber Files
Just like the HBO show, I've largely avoided the Uber Files. The company is, without any doubt in my mind, horribly unethical and did anything they could to force the change that enabled their business. I don't need to read the files to know that. I was honestly angry that an HBO show got made about the company and its founder.
Now, with my moral grandstanding out of the way. I was also a loyal customer as the easiest way to ride to and from the airport. Granted, in this new era, it is unlikely I go back to using them. I'll either hire a driver directly from a local business, or use a taxi service.
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Auto manufacturer family tree: Who owns what?
Australian website breaks down who owns who when it comes to the car brands of the world. I knew a lot of them, but definitely didn't know all of it.
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A look at very early computer games for business simulation
A fascinating look at some of the very early (1950s) mainframe computer games used for execs and college students to study business models.
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Under the Influence podcast
A friend turned me onto this CBC produced podcast. I've only hit some of my friend's episodes, but I plan to listen to more of the show as I find the 'infotainment' from the show to be good.
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A look at Andy Jassy
I knew nearly nothing about Andy Jassy, this was a good brief overview given the news that he is replacing Bezos later this year.
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Email from Jeff Bezos to employees about his stepping down as CEO later this year
I don't know of another company with an invention track record as good as Amazon's, and I believe we are at our most inventive right now. I hope you are as proud of our inventiveness as I am. I think you should be.
Alright, settle down Jeff. I think you might be a little overstepping here.
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