Amanda > Recent Status Updates

Sony in Japan built better laptops than Apple. But JP was no longer an affordable manufacturing base + good at taking instructions but bad at collaborating (failed collaboration with Sharp).

Apple newton was an unloved division > freedom > decide to contract manufacturers in Taiwan. TW was colonised by JP for 60y until WWII > skill transfer + cheaper + better collaborators @ Inventec

Chapter 2: Apple’s adventures in outsourcing to Japan and Taiwan. Started with laserwriter with Canon in JP, a printer that could print fonts designed in MacOS > Adobe (postscript software that allowed users to play with typefaces) & page maker > allowed publishing books.

Apple‘s biggest issue in the early days is that they did not have a government strategy in China. The company was orchestrating vast production networks but doing so under the radar with not a single manufacturing site, bearing apples‘s name. Apple cracked the code on how to manufacture the products without doing any of the manufacturing itself. It wasn’t really outsourcing in a normal sense.

2013: CCTV charged Apple for treating Chinese customers unequally and unfairly, citing warranty service differences (China: replace broken parts, overseas: wholly replaced)

Xi hardened conditions in the country and twisted the arms of corporations to give back to China in 2013. Beijing deliberately accused apple of something new, wasn’t true to demonstrate its power.

The basis of empathy: We must have once felt supported, comforted, and understood in our suffering, which gives us a model of how to feel for others. But people with bleak childhoods, never had that kind of privilege.

Innovators need to be conscientious, creative and disagreeable. IKEA Swedish founder, Ingvar Kampard, he understood that much of the cost of furniture was tied up in its assembly, so he sold furniture that hasn’t been assembled in flat boxes, and under, sold all his competitors. In the 1950, he faced boycotts. However, he was open-minded and outsourced to Poland, a communist country and the peak of the Cold War

Concept: desirable difficulties, what is learnt out of necessity is more powerful than learning that comes easily

- learning disabilities affect 1/3 of CEOs eg richard Branson, Charles Schwab, David neeleman (JetBlue founder)

- David boies: famous lawyer who has dyslexia. He was a great listener because his listening skills compensated for his reading abilities

Next few chapters were about basketball, salon & the impressionists, big fish in a small pond vs small fish in a big pond. Interesting insights about relative deprivation (how the big pond demoralises high performing students) and evidence

The introduction on David and Goliath was really good. It wasn’t something I was aware of. A giant (Goliath) asking for a one on one combat battle with the Israelites - no one but David a shepherd offered to fight and he won spectacularly with his own means (swinging). Underdogs need to win in unconventional ways and whenever that happens, the odds are always higher for the underdogs.

Main points
1. Do not be a gloomer
2. AI should be an extension of human agency
3. Unlike finite resources, tech democratises resources