Hey👋,
I'm Giacomo

Appreciation post of a sunny Friday afternoon, only for music enthusiasts.

The 1975 are my all-time favourite band. They're back after over two years of silence, and I think there are some learnings we can all get from them.

1. If your product/skills are strong, people will wait for you.
   Time is on your side. Those who forget you after a period of silence are not good "customers". Better to avoid them.
2. You can innovate/grow while still being yourself.
   The 1975 have explored many music genres over their career, from sing-along pop, to heavy rock, house, ambient and more. But you could always tell it is a The 1975 song. Brands and professionals should learn from this. Innovation/growth doesn't necessarily mean "change".
3. Stay in your area of expertise.
   Once the pandemic broke through, The 1975 just disappeared from social media and public appearance. This was different from many other artists or public personalities who took word about the pandemic, although not being experts. Just do your job well and people will appreciate you for that.
4. Take brave decisions.
   The 1975 were supposed to go on a huge world tour in 2020 and 2021. Instead of constantly postponing tour dates, they took the brave decision of cancelling the tour for good. Now, after over two years, they're back with a new album and probably new tour dates.
5. Release a wintery music video during the hottest summer on record😀.

Who else here is a The 1975 fan?

I’ve been thinking how modern life in the western world has become increasingly complex to navigate, especially for young people.

I think that one of the main challenges we face is the abundance of options. We are led to believe that anything is possible, which is kind of true.

You want to travel to that beautiful island that you just saw on Instagram? I guess you can. You want to make more money? I'm sure crypto TikTokers have good advice for you. Social media makes you unhappy about your body? Plastic surgery is definitely an option. You're overwhelmed by the amount of seemingly available and beautiful men/women on Instagram? Easy, get a divorce and chase one of them.

But the paradox is that having too many options makes decisions harder.

How can I know what is best for me if anything is possible and potentially right and accepted? I feel like we’re losing track.

Now, that’s also what totalitarian governments tend to think, for example in China. I couldn’t help but agreeing with some of the measures the Chinese government has recently taken, regarding the use of social media, video games, the super-rich etc.
 For a brief moment, I thought that was the way. It’s hard to digest, but ultimately will make people happier.

Until I read more about it.

Unfortunately, fewer options mean that someone else chooses for you.

In China, there’s a deep mental-health crisis. Not only there, I would argue. But unlike in western countries, in China it is very hard to be treated properly.

This is because therapists are generally “controlled” by the government. So if you struggle with the heavy lockdown measures, a therapist will try to put the blame on you. If you’re in a marriage crisis, a therapist will convince you not to divorce. If your ideas clash with the government’s, you’re sent to a psychiatric clinic, as if you were ill instead of simply in disagreement.

I feel like we will need to put more and more effort into making the right choices, but this is the price to pay for our freedom.

After exploding during the pandemic, achieving triple-digit growth, things look a bit darker in Shein's future.

It faces 5 main challenges:

1. Decreasing purchasing power.
   Gen Z, Shein's largest audience, are for the most part still students and so particularly sensitive to inflation.
2. Gen Zers will eventually grow up.
   The web-only model led to incredible success, but it's also very sensitive to trends. In fact, Shein made a bid to acquire TOPSHOP TOPMAN in order to establish an offline presence. It didn't win, but it's an indication that the current business model might not be sufficient.
3. Regulation changes.
   Shein takes advantage of a loophole in the US law that spares low-value shipments (under $800) from high customs duties. But this might change soon in light of new tensions with China.
4. Concerns around forced labour.
   The US have recently taken further steps to fight forced labour in China. Shein might face a backlash in the west, just for being Chinese.
5. Concerns around sustainability.
   "Throw-away-fashion" is under scrutiny for its environmental implications. It's ironic how Shein's largest audience is Gen Z, who is also the most sensitive to climate issues. Will consumers eventually boycott it?

Can you think of any other challenge/risk?

Sources: Bloomberg, Economist

I admit I know very little about fashion. Even less about Gen-Zers' taste.

But as a marketing and ecommerce professional, I couldn't ignore the story of SHEIN, pronounced "She-in".

SHEIN is the web-only "enfant prodigue" that has taken the fast-fashion industry by storm. It's a Chinese giant valued at $100bn, but it doesn't look or feel Chinese. In fact, it doesn't even market to China!

With the US being its main market, revenue grew from around $3bn in 2019 to an estimated $20bn in 2021. Not bad!

Its market share surpassed H&M and Zara's combined, likely making it the largest fast-fashion retailer in the US. All of this, while being still relatively unknown to over 30s like me.

So what are the ingredients of its success?

1️⃣ A disruptive supplychain model.

2️⃣ Smart use of digital marketing and social influencers.

3️⃣ AI-driven design choices.

4️⃣ Tax and regulation loopholes, as well as avoidance of geopolitical controversies.

1. They are able to release 6,000 new SKUs per day, thanks to an agile network of geo-concentrated small Chinese manufactures.
2. On top of recruiting professional TikTok influencers, they take advantage of a large network of independent designers that can't wait to show to their friends their creations available on Shein.
3. Engineers constantly scrape the internet in search of the next trend. An AI algorithm processes the information and sends it to the suppliers, who then work on new designs almost instantly.
   ➡️ This is real-time fashion! ⬅️
4. The US-China trade war brought the Chinese government to introduce tax benefits aimed at online retailers who export to America, like Shein 😀. Plus, customers' orders are shipped directly from China in small, low-value parcels, which helps avoid expensive customs fees in the US.

However, SHEIN now faces several challenges. Find out more in my next post!

sources: Economist, Bloomberg, Fortune, Ben Evans' blog

Tech giants disrupted the internet, what's next for them? Healthcare!

This is where Google is placing its next "alpha bet" 😀

They are heavily investing in four broad health categories:

1. Wearables.
2. Health records.
3. Health-related artificial intelligence.
4. Extending human longevity.

Although many tech companies have ventured into the industry, none is investing as much as Alphabet is. I would also argue that no other company owns as much personal (and health) data as Google does.

We have interesting times ahead, driven by the tradeoff of personal privacy vs personal health.

What do you think are the challenges of such a future?

Don't buy crypto!


Crypto businesses made it to the mainstream, with tv ads at the SuperBowl, huge billboards at soccer matches and more.

We are encouraged to “be brave”, “to take the risk”, so we can get rich just by installing an app and buying some coins.

Thanks god, the usage of cryptocurrencies is not mainstream yet. In fact, as of September 2021, 9 out 10 Americans had heard about crypto but just 16% of them actually used or bought a coin/token.

There’s a good explanation for that.

13 years after the launch of Bitcoin, there’s still not much we can do with cryptocurrencies, apart from buying them and waiting for the value to increase.

Coinbase claims that the future of money is here. Well, apparently there’s not much we can do with money in the future.

The promise behind cryptocurrencies was that of democratising the finance industry and money in general. It hasn’t happened yet. Actually, the exact opposite happened!

Research by the The Wall Street Journal shows that as of December 2021 just 0.01% of bitcoin holders controls 27% of the currency in circulation. And now they’re even planning to build their own cities, as I explain in a previous post.

This is late-stage capitalism, not the egalitarian utopia promised by the crypto evangelists.

Their motto goes by “We’re all gonna make it” #WAGMI. Agreed, they’re definitely going to make it (and already are), at the expense of the regular people to whom the Super Bowl ads are targeted.

But who are they?

They are mostly entrepreneurs who built popular apps around crypto, mainly exchange and trading platforms. Apps to trade cryptocurrencies, not to actually make use of them. Those entrepreneurs made it to the billionaires club thanks to real-dollar commissions paid by their users.

An argument could be that investing in cryptocurrencies is no different from buying shares in a company, with the “company” being the crypto ecosystem. Agreed!

So, would you buy shares in a company that doesn’t make profit, whose products very few people use and are complex to understand, as well as not regulated? Probably not.

So, why would you buy crypto?

However, cryptocurrencies did something good. They popularised the concept of blockchain.

The blockchain technology can have a myriad of applications other than cryptocurrencies. Many “boring” industries are already making strong use of it, for example the pharma industry, which is using it to prevent counterfeiting.

The blockchain revolution is actually happening, but it’s going to be way less sexy than Matt Damon in his Crypto.com advert.

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To read more about this: It’s okay to opt out of the crypto revolution

What is the guy in the picture staring at?

It is the Worldcoin "orb". A metal sphere that looks just off of a dystopian sci-fi movie. The story of Worldcoin is in fact dystopic and shows the dark side of web3 and cryptocurrencies.

Inspired by the basic-income concept, the company's vision is to fairly distribute its cryptocurrency (WLD) to every person on earth. But first, it wants to scan everybody’s eyeballs in order to avoid fraud. This is what the "orb" is for: a feminine robotic voice asks you to come closer and open your eyes: "Initiating scan".

Co-founded in 2020 by former Y Combinator's head Sam Altman, Worldcoin is already valued at $3 billion! 🤯

It has raised funds from top investors like Andreessen Horowitz, the venture capital arm of Coinbase, Reid Hoffman and others.

However, it hasn't got much publicity.

Why?

Its cryptocurrency hasn't been launched yet, although it was meant to last summer, and then again at the end of last year and now "sometime in 2022". I guess this shouldn't be concerning, delays happen.

But it is concerning, when the coin was promised as a financial reward to the hundreds of thousand people who already registered over the past two years and agreed for their eyes to be scanned.

Worldcoin has mainly operated in poor and developing countries, like Sudan, Ghana, Chile and Kenya to name a few. This is instrumental to get more people to sign up. A small financial reward in exchange for valuable biometric information is more appealing to uneducated and poor populations, than even to the most crypto-enthusiast nerd in the rich world.

In fact, the company is scanning as many people as possible to train its AI algorithm. The scope is to identify unique eye scans and avoid duplicates as well as bots. The same system can be used by (or maybe sold to?) other web3 applications for identity verification purposes.

This involves huge privacy concerns, which the company hasn't clearly addressed yet. Somewhat ironically, the whole point of crypto is for our personal data to be "crypto" and anonymous. Well...

There are reports of people being misled and given false promises. Many didn't even own a smartphone and so couldn't install the Worldcoin wallet to redeem the coins. Many felt literally scammed.

With personal data being the most valuable asset of the 21st century, tech companies are racing to get as much of it as possible. It's just easier and cheaper to get it from poor countries, where privacy regulations don't apply.

This is called data colonialism or even crypto colonialism if you wish.

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To know more about this story:

MIT Technology Review: Deception, exploited workers, and cash handouts: How Worldcoin recruited its first half a million test users