What we’re reading (11/27)
“FTC Opens Wide-Ranging Antitrust Probe Into Microsoft” (CNN Business). “Microsoft is set to go under the microscope of the nation’s top antitrust watchdog, the Federal Trade Commission, which is launching a sweeping investigation into the tech giant’s practices. The FTC, in a letter sent to Microsoft, demanded that it hand over information to assist in the agency’s investigation, a source familiar with the matter told CNN.”
“A Quarter Of Your Retirement Fund Just Isn’t Keeping Up” (Wall Street Journal). “U.S. stocks have been euphoric lately—and they’ve left international stocks in the dust. The longtime performance gap between the two is widening. Since the end of 2009, an MSCI index tracking equities outside the U.S. has only topped the S&P 500 in two years, according to Dow Jones Market Data. During the S&P 500’s banner 26% rise this year, the index has risen roughly 3%. If that holds through the rest of the year, it would be the biggest performance gap in nearly three decades.”
“Patagonia Gets Serious” (Business Insider). “Since its founding in 1973, Patagonia has positioned itself as a workplace nirvana — a community more so than a company, one that prioritizes the well-being of the Earth and of its employees above all else. But in the past few years, as sales have slowed, the outdoor-apparel brand has buckled down, cutting redundant jobs, tracking performance metrics, and banning long-standing practices such as letting sales representatives sell Patagonia samples to friends and family on the side.”
“AllHere Founder Arrest Shows It’s Easy For Startups To Scam VCs” (Axios). “Joanna Smith-Griffin, founder of an ed-tech app for reducing student absenteeism, was arrested earlier this month and charged with securities fraud, wire fraud, and aggravated identity theft. Smith-Griffin, a onetime member of the Forbes ‘30 Under 30,’ faces decades in prison. Her startup was called AllHere, and raised around $4 million in seed funding led by ReThink Education. In 2021 it raised an $8 million Series A round led by Spero Ventures. Both Rethink Education and Spero received board seats. According to the Justice Department complaint, however, Smith-Griffin lied to investors about nearly everything — including revenue, customer contracts, and cash-on-hand. And she profited, selling around $750,000 of shares into the Series A.”
“The ‘It Doesn’t Matter’ Perspective” (Scott Sumner). “[T]he ‘nothing matters’ perspective goes well beyond cases of markets reacting to compensate for some sort of policy shift. I also suspect that for aggregate outcomes, all sorts of individual policies matter less than one might think. For instance, one viewpoint on which many Democrats and Republican seem to agree is that elections are very important for the future direction of the economy. But are they? The entire stock market response to the recent election could be explained by a single issue—lower corporate tax rates under a new GOP administration. Who is president might matter for the broader economy, but how could we ever know for sure?”
