“Buffett, he says, invests in existing, undervalued companies, a bit like a mutual fund—precisely the opposite of Alphabet’s VC-style focus on risky new ventures like Calico, which wants to somehow fight aging.”

1b. The example Alphabet should follow

[Harvard Business Review]

“But there’s a better comparison than [Berkshire]: it’s John Malone, the ‘mastermind’ who built the cable TV powerhouse Liberty Media. Malone is a brilliant financial engineer, who creates separate capital structures—each with a unique stock—for his different lines of business.”

“According to a recent Forbes article, mobile shopping app usage is growing faster than any other category of app. But how are millennials responding to the influx of mobile shopping apps? With the help of a few Stanford students, we surveyed over 1,600 millennials on their usage of native mobile apps. Here’s what we learned.”

“Rosanne Siino finds it amusing when students interrupt one of her lectures at Stanford University to ask: ‘So, what is Netscape?'”

“Wow, how long has it been?” Siino, one of the first hires at Netscape, recalls telling a student. “Boy, you have no idea how much the world changed just before you were born.”

“The business also is rethinking how it reaches its customers. Through next Monday, it’s testing a hybrid online-meets-brick-and-mortar shopping experience with a fit shop where women can browse and try on selections with the help of a Mod stylist in the store. Rather than buying and leaving with merchandise, stylists will help shoppers place orders online in the shop and receive free and/or expedited shipping.”

“The fleeting nature of the news feed—streaming by with the trends of the moment—lends a sense of urgency to the social retail experience. Exclusive offers and flash promotions add to pressure on social media ‘to act quickly or miss out on the deal at hand,’ writes retail columnist Brad Tuttle in Time, and users tend to forgo the obsessive comparison shopping that characterizes other online purchases.”