Good morning, world, and happy Tuesday!
Greetings from sunny and rainy Singapore — today’s treat is a bit on the heavy side — enjoy and please share.
Non-Travel Starters
Twitter’s product changes and evolves the same way its executive team does. Just this past week, four Twitter execs decided to pursue opportunities elsewhere — a coincidental move that suggests major reshuffle at the senior level. Jack explains in a note. The market continues with its pressure and rumors are on the table for another acqusition-talk wave. Link.
Apple veteran and leader of the Project Titan, Apple’s foray into car making, Steve Zadevsky, is leaving the company after 16 years in Cupertino. This could be suggesting a slower than expected progress on the car play or just a reshuffle in the team. In either case, 2019 launch might not happen. Link.
Microsoft is bringing a one-handed digital keyboard to its devices as the messaging economy is exploding and voice is yet not picking up. Bots — please come in. Link.
As Spotify is trying to find its way amongst competition from Apple and Google, it looks to video to engage with users. I kind of like that copy-cat strategy, as it offers multiple channels for content producers — iTunes, YouTube, Vimeo, Netflix, Amazon TV, Facebook, Snapchat, etc. Power is back in the hands of the networks. Link.
Snacks
Airbus is predicting flat sales for its helicopter unit, despite partnering with Uber for UberChopper in some cities. Meanwhile, Travis Kalanick made almost half a billion in Q3 in revenue, offset by almost $700M in loss. The quest for growth continues — this kind of runrate probably needs its own term — ubergrowth. . Link.
In a study, Penn State claims that nearly 40% of the revenue generated form the US top 12 cities for AirBnB is delivered from illegal properties — units from hosts who book at least 360 days of the property or rent more than one unit. Professional AirBnB property manager will be an actual career path soon. Link.
The European Commission gives the go ahead to Amadeus to finalize the purchase of Navitaire, the LCC passenger service system. With that and its own PSS, 1A will manage nearly 50% of all bookings globally and the move to LCC as a growth path is clear — now the GDS offers Ryanair’s business flex tickets on its system. Consolidation. Continues. Link.
Ross talks about self-managing business travel with our outstanding tool TravelPro. Watch this space. Link.
Dessert (Stats)
$1,000,000,000: Amount Google paid Apple to keep the default position on iOS in 2014. Still a good deal, as it seems the sum represented 34% of all revenue generating by the Mountain View giant. Link.
22,000,000: Digits in the longest prime number ever found. Clearly, important research going on here. Link.
11,000: Number of flights cancelled due to the snowstorm on in the Mid-Atlantic reagion. Yes, we get it. There’s a lot of snow and it is cold. Enough on Facebook :). Link.
62: The top of the top in wealth, or exactly 62 people, have as much wealth as 3.5Bn people, or the bottom 50% of the world. Hm… Link.
#1: INSEAD is ranked top business school globally by the FT. Proud alum, 13J. Link.
0: Fashion sense or decision-making exhaustion in Zuck’s work wardrobe, as he comes back from paternity leave.
Some Cool Reading (Watching)
An emotional wedding haka is making its rounds in teh interwebs. (3 min). Link.
Bill Gates is convinced that mobile tech will change agriculture — connectivity for relevant information how to take better care of your crops might be just a tad bit more important then updating your Facebook profile picture. (3 min). Link.
Ted.com, the fountain of education, publishes its top 15 talks for 2015. Going through the list, the joy of education couldn’t be more thrilling, so avoid Netflix before the new season of House of Cards and spend some time borrowing the best brains out there for a while. (Timeless). Link.
Speaking of that list, one of the most captivating and touching talks is delivered by BJ Miller, who muses about what really matters and the beauty of sharing the suffering. One quote that remians with me while I listen to this really moved me recently: “And why must we wait until the evening of a life to appreciate how beautiful was the day?”. Poweful. (20 min). Link.
//Expressed views and opinions are my own.
Photo Credit: National Geographic is amazing. Please share and give credit to their photographs and photographers. Here’s the link for your daily inspiration: http://photography.nationalgeographic.com/photography/photo-of-the-day/
