The Guardian (January 30)
“Whatever the truth about DeepSeek, China’s tech sector is light years ahead on strategy and investment.” This shouldn’t come as a surprise. “China took a strategic view of the industries in which it wanted to be competitive, invested heavily to get them established, protected them when they were in their infancy, and waited patiently for the results.” China had more patent filings in 2023 that the rest of the globe combined. It graduates double the number of STEM PhDs as the U.S. And it “is already the biggest exporter of electric vehicles.” Even without DeepSeek, “the west is already losing the AI arms race.”
Tags: AI arms race, China, Competitive, DeepSeek, EVs, Invested, Investment, Losing, Patent filings, PhDs, Protected, STEM, Strategy, Tech sector, U.S.
Foreign Affairs (January 14)
“America’s China strategy is incomplete.” Success will require “a full suite of economic incentives, public-private partnerships, and investment and trade deals to reduce the United States’ and its partners’ reliance on China.” The good news is that U.S. partners are “concerned about Chinese influence themselves” and “eager to work with Washington.” This means Trump’s second term could potentially “supercharge the global shift away from dependence on Chinese supply, bolstering the U.S. economy and enhancing U.S. national security” if he can effectively leverage “economic tools beyond tariffs.”
Tags: China, Eager, Economic incentives, Global shift, Influence, Investment, National security, Public-private partnerships, Reliance, Strategy, Tariffs, Trade deals, U.S.
Washington Post (September 19)
Europe faces many challenges, but the largest is structural. “The E.U. is still not really one big thing, but a collection of smaller ones. This makes it difficult for companies to scale” or for the EU to pursue a coherent strategy. “Mr. Draghi’s report has many good ideas — to unify budgets, markets and strategies; to streamline rules to encourage innovation. At its core, the message is one that Europeans have heard before: For Europe to thrive, it must act as Europe.”
Tags: Budgets, Challenges, Companies, Draghi, E.U., Europe, Markets, Rules, Scale, Strategies, Strategy, Streamline, Structural, Unify
Fortune (September 5)
“JPMorgan joins a growing chorus of global firms downgrading their expectations for China’s stock market, following similar moves by former China bulls UBS Global Wealth Management and Nomura Holdings Inc. in the last few weeks. It signals exclusion of China is becoming a popular strategy for investors and analysts amid the country’s dimming prospects and the likelihood of better returns elsewhere.”
Tags: Analysts, China, China bulls, Downgrading, Exclusion, Expectations, Investors, JPMorgan, Nomura, Stock market, Strategy, UBS
Wall Street Journal (March 2)
With “the rapidly advancing nuclear capabilities of all four of America’s nuclear-capable rivals—Russia, Iran, North Korea and China,” it is time to reevaluate nuclear strategy. “Instead of pursuing 1990s-era fantasies about reducing the role of nuclear weapons, Washington needs to understand that… it is entering a long-term strategic-arms competition.” The U.S. must “strengthen its strategic forces to provide an adequate deterrent for itself and the more than 30 formal treaty allies that rely on U.S. nuclear weapons for their security.”
Tags: 1990s, Advancing, Allies, Capabilities, China, Competition, Deterrent, Iran, North Korea, Nuclear, Rivals, Russia, Strategic arms, Strategy, U.S., Weapons
TechCrunch (February 11)
“Google is flailing” as it now tries to rush its AI strategy. In contrast, Microsoft seems to be nearing a break-away moment. “The move to integrate the latest GPT model… with Bing and Edge is a kind of forced hail mary, its last and best play in the search engine world.” This move has “clearly rattled” Google, causing its “leadership to swiftly transition from anxiety to full-on flop sweat.”
Tags: AI, Anxiety, Bing, Edge, Flailing, Google, GPT model, Hail mary, Integrate, Leadership, Microsoft, Rattled, Rush, Search engine, Strategy
The Guardian (October 12)
“Within a decade, the US will need to deter two major nuclear weapons powers for the first time,” as can be seen from “the Russian arsenal that is increasingly being brandished by Moscow and an expanding Chinese stockpile.” President Biden’s “new national security strategy (NSS) depicts China as the most capable long-term competitor, but Russia as the more immediate, disruptive threat.”
Tags: Arsenal, Biden, Brandished, Capable, China, Competitor, Deter, Expanding, Moscow, National security, Nuclear weapons, Russia, Stockpile, Strategy, U.S.
Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance (September 18)
ESG “is not a unitary principle or even a collection of a fixed set of particular principles. Rather, ESG encapsulates the range of risks that all corporations must carefully balance, taking into account their specific circumstances, in seeking to achieve long-term, sustainable value.” The ESG label may be new, but “corporate boards and management have long considered ESG factors and risks in setting and executing strategy…. Doing so is associated with superior financial results, and consistent with long-accepted norms as to the place of business in society.”
Tags: Balance, Boards, Circumstances, Corporations, ESG, Financial results, Fixed, Management, Principle, Range, Risks, Society, Strategy, Sustainable, Value
The Economist (September 18)
For years, digital advertising has been “largely impervious to the business cycle” and “dominated” by Google and Meta. These “verities” may be falling as companies tighten marketing budgets. “Until recently, that would have meant cutting non-digital ads but maintaining, or even raising, online spending. With most ad dollars now going online, that strategy is running out of road. Last quarter Meta reported its first-ever year-on-year decline in revenues. Snap, a smaller rival, is laying off a fifth of its workforce.”
Tags: Business cycle, Decline, Digital advertising, Dominated, Google, Impervious, Marketing budgets, Meta, Non-digital ads, Online spending, Revenues, Rival, Snap, Strategy
Wall Street Journal (November 7)
“The global recovery—while still robust—is at a precarious point, with the risk of missteps.” A recent survey shows “Only about a fifth of businesses judge that the worst of the supply-chain disruptions has passed,” complicating strategy for executives. Meanwhile, central bankers “are trying to chart a path that will curb inflation but not choke off growth as they navigate the process of weaning economies” from extraordinary support.
Tags: Central bankers, Disruptions, Executives, Extraordinary, Global, Growth, Inflation, Missteps, Precarious, Recovery, Risk, Robust, Strategy, Supply chain, Weaning