Nuggies: Escaping Crises
Thursday, December 3rd, 2020
Welcome to the twenty-seventh edition of Nuggies, an email newsletter that aggregates articles and commentary on business, economics, startups, and more, in bite-sized nuggets sent right to your email weekly. Created by and for college students.
Our quote of the week comes from philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, “Without music, life would be a mistake.”
This Week’s Articles:
This Japanese Shop Is 1,020 Years Old. It Knows a Bit About Surviving Crises., New York Times
This is a great piece and morning read from the New York Times on a Japanese desert shop that has stayed in business for over 1000 years. It tells the story of the shop in the context of Japan’s business culture and economic conditions, which makes for an engaging, eye-opening read. A common thread: these businesses don’t work to maximize profits, they work for higher purposes.
Read it here
Paul Graham, Dropbox And The Single Founder Exception, Fortune
This quick read tells the story of how Y Combinator, the famous Silicon Valley startup accelerator, dropped its single founder exclusion rule. Paul Graham, YC’s founder, typically did not allow solo founders into the YC program, a rule which almost kept rockstar company Dropbox from participating. Dropbox made it in, however, and went on to become one of YC’s most successful companies in its history.
Read it here
Airbnb: The Disaster Artist, The Generalist S-1 Club
The Generalist’s S-1 Club takes a deep dive into the SEC filings of companies looking to IPO (or the Form S-1). This edition tells the story of Airbnb and analyzes the future outlook of the business as well as its historical financials. This piece offers a great summary of the full S-1 and includes some helpful skepticism.
Read it here
Slack + Salesforce Emergency Pod, Acquired
This week, enterprise software juggernaut Salesforce announced it’s acquiring messaging service Slack for $27.7 billion. The podcast explores some of the motivations for the acquisition and how the two combined companies will ultimately be able to compete with Microsoft.
Listen to it here
This Week’s Tweets:
This Week’s Wildcard (an extra, interesting nugget):
It’s a bit unconventional to have ANOTHER Tweet as the wildcard, but this Twitter thread on “Gorilla Taxes”, or weaknesses in large, juggernaut companies that startups can take advantage of, should be required reading for anyone interested in startups.
This Week’s Question:
Will Salesforce’s acquisition of Slack prove to be a good decision?
What are we listening to this week?:
This week we’re listening to “Drunk” by Thundercat. A virtuoso bass player and frequent collaborator of Mac Miller and Kendrick Lamar, Thundercat finds his own unique voice in his solo work. It’s an album that can effortlessly blend psychedelic sounds with fast grooves and lighthearted lyrics.
Thank you for reading! Nuggies is created by Thomas Pero and Spencer Koehl, two undergraduate students at the University of Notre Dame.
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