Ged Carroll

Category: ideas | 想法 | 생각 | 考える

Ideas were at the at the heart of why I started this blog. One of the first posts that I wrote there being a sweet spot in the complexity of products based on the ideas of Dan Greer. I wrote about the first online election fought by Howard Dean, which now looks like a precursor to the Obama and Trump presidential bids.

I articulated a belief I still have in the benefits of USB thumb drives as the Thumb Drive Gospel. The odd rant about IT, a reflection on the power of loose social networks, thoughts on internet freedom – an idea that that I have come back to touch on numerous times over the years as the online environment has changed.

Many of the ideas that I discussed came from books like Kim and Mauborgne’s Blue Ocean Strategy.

I was able to provide an insider perspective on Brad Garlinghouse’s infamous Peanut Butter-gate debacle. It says a lot about the lack of leadership that Garlinghouse didn’t get fired for what was a power play. Garlinghouse has gone on to become CEO of Ripple.

I built on initial thoughts by Stephen Davies on the intersection between online and public relations with a particular focus on definition to try and come up with unifying ideas.

Or why thought leadership is a less useful idea than demonstrating authority of a particular subject.

I touched on various retailing ideas including the massive expansion in private label products with grades of ‘premiumness’.

I’ve also spent a good deal of time thinking about the role of technology to separate us from the hoi polloi. But this was about active choice rather than an algorithmic filter bubble.

 

  • December 2025 issue 29

    December 2025 introduction – (29) rise and shine edition

    I am now at issue 29, in Chinese numerology the number 29 is viewed positively, as it symbolises a long-lasting harmonious relationship. In bingo slang 29 is referred to as ‘rise-and-shine’ – ironic given that we’re currently enjoying the least daylight in any part of the year.

    Rise and Shine

    If you’ve managed to avoid Whamageddon – well done. I did my part with last month’s recommendation for Christmas music.

    This time you can’t do much better capturing pure joy than Folamour at the Mixmag Lab in London. Now we have a sound track, let’s get into it. 

    New reader?

    If this is the first newsletter, welcome! You can find my regular writings here and more about me here. 

    SO

    Things I’ve written.

    A quick look at the implications of the US government’s new National Security Strategy.

    Rob Belk featured me in the Rambull newsletter. If you haven’t subscribed to his newsletter yet, I recommend doing so. It’s akin to a modern-day version of The Whole Earth Catalog, filled with carefully curated tools and useful resources, but without the tie-dye elephant pants. You can check it out here.

    Books that I have read.

    • Counterinsurgency by David Kilcullen. I bought several books on the recommendation of friends during the COVD lockdown and am slowly whittling my way through the pile, Counterinsurgency was one of them. It’s a collection of writings by Australian academic David Kilcullen, who advised the US government from 2005 – 2006 about Iraq and Afghanistan. This book is a collection of his writings from articles in military journals repeating many of the lessons learned in the past about fighting against guerrillas to Indonesian history. I had done some campaigns in Indonesia in the past for Qualcomm and Indofoods, so was interested in the post-independence history within it at the time. More about the book here.

    Things I have been inspired by.

    Due to the timing on writing the last newsletter, I missed writing about how I got to spend an evening with senior in-house marketers thanks to The Ortus Club. The evening was held at a restaurant in Mayfair sharing experience of AI in terms of its benefits, future opportunities and challenges.

    Discussion themes that resonated:

    • There isn’t a lack of enthusiasm for generative AI in the corporate world.
    • Generative AI work often isn’t checked, to the detriment of it. It’s a powerful assist but you need to trust but verify.
    • IP concerns are holding back adoption and impacting tool choice by enterprises. Legal / regulatory departments are important AI gatekeepers.
    • Picking the right AI tool for the right job, too many organisations are trying to use one AI tool for everything.

    Toyota officially unveiled their GR GT and it’s gorgeous looking. It is also a strikingly different direction to the likes of Mercedes Benz and the Volkswagen Group of companies with only useful technology allowed. its rather different to the usual automotive approach of a computer that happens to have four wheels.

    In what is fast becoming an annual end of year tradition, Iolanda Carvalho, Amy Daroukakis, Gonzalo Gregori and Ci En Lee compiled 135+ trend reports from various organisations and strategists tucked straight in. You can explore most of them using NotebookLM here.

    Chart of the month. 

    Ipsos have been doing research in conjunction with Joe.co.uk looking at all things masculinity. One of the charts that stood out for me asked about the use of dating apps.

    dating app usage

    There was a clear gender gap between app usage numbers which represented an interesting challenge for product managers. It would merit further investigation as to the why. I have a couple of hypotheses:

    • Your product didn’t engage with women as much as men.
    • Your product is a poor medium to build up a rapport.
    • Some sort of difference in on-app behaviour usage that divides genders.
    • Your product carries social baggage that means women are less likely to admit that they have used your service.

    You can see how dating app brands have tried to address this through in real life events and women move first in-app mechanisms.

    Things I have watched. 

    bullet in the head ICA rerelease poster

    I managed to get hold of Bullet In The Head on Blu Ray. While John Woo’s A Better Tomorrow. The Killer and Hard Boiled are respected by western directors, Bullet In The Head doesn’t get enough appreciation. The story of the film is almost as good as the film itself. Woo split with production partner Tsui Hark to direct his own script. Woo even self-financed the film. The film is Woo’s singular vision with influences including the Tiananmen Square student protests, Vietnam news reel footage and The Deer Hunter. Over time it had become hard to find and is under-appreciated. It’s not a perfect film because it was so ambitious in terms of its scale and there is a softness to the cinematography that you also see The Killer. Despite all that, it’s a fantastic film that I would thoroughly recommend. As a bonus, here’s a list of John Woo’s favourite films, as you can see he has impeccable taste.

    Prison on Fire is part of my on-again, off-again tour through Ringo Lam’s filmography. Made in 1987, it has ‘Big Tony’ Leung Ka-fai who plays a graphic designer working in an ad agency who is sent to prison for manslaughter. He and his prison friend played by Chow Yun-fat navigate sadistic guards and violent triad convicts.

    Prison on Fire 2 was Ringo Lam’s sequel to the first successful instalment of Prison on Fire. Chow Yun-fat returned to play his central role in the sequel, this time dealing with mainland prisoners, in addition to the usual triads and sadistic guards. In addition to the action, the film focuses much more on the relationship between Chow and his on-screen son. Given the various hot button issues in the film from a modern-day Hong Kong context:

    • Triad – prison guard collusion
    • Conflict between Hong Kong and mainland Chinese
    • Blackening the name of the disciplined services* of the Hong Kong government (coastguard, police, corrections department, anti-corruption agency etc.)

    You are unlikely to see the like of the Prison on Fire films again, they would be in contravention of NatSec aka Law of the People’s Republic of China on Safeguarding National Security in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region.

    Thief was Michael Mann’s film debut. A hard-bitten heist film with film noir vibes. James Caan plays the protagonist Frank, a professional safe cracker adept at drilling locks out or cutting the door open with a thermic lance. He partners with James Belushi who plays an alarm expert. Mann contrasts the professionalism of Frank executing heists with his awkwardness claiming the heart of his girlfriend. A lot of the tension and craft he later brought to Heat and Collateral are already on display in this first firm, for instance the way Mann shoots nighttime scenes and paces the film’s plot. Tangerine Dream give Thief an amazing soundtrack.

    Useful tools.

    I have been working on a number of video projects and we’ve been using Trint to allow a perfect transcript to be made from digital video rushes that would aid in the editing and post-production process.

    Whether you prospecting for adtech or job-hunting; Mediasense’s agency family tree makes life easier.

    If you are moving into a leadership position, Zoe Arden‘s Story-Centred Leadership: Crafting Cultures of Change is probably worth a look. The book looks at how leaders can use stories to drive change through an iterative process of  ‘listening, building, shaping, sharing and living’ their stories, rather than treating the story as a one-and-done activation. That might sound a bit new-age and your mileage may vary in terms of how it works as a tool for your leadership style. But Zoe might be on to something. Nick Chater‘s The Mind is Flat looked at neuroscience and what we know about thinking arrived at the conclusion that stories are software for the brain and Story-Centred Leadership seems to come from a similar direction. (Disclosure: Zoe worked at my first agency, back then I worked at on B2B & consumer technology and telecoms clients.)

    The sales pitch.

    I have been working on a brand and creative strategy engagement at Google’s internal creative agency. I am now taking bookings for strategic engagements from the start of 2026 – keep me in mind; or get in touch for discussions on permanent roles. Contact me here.

    now taking bookings

    More on what I have done here.

    bit.ly_gedstrategy

    The End.

    Ok this is the end of my December 2025 newsletter, I hope to see you all back here again in a month. Be excellent to each other and have a great Christmas and new year. Keep an eye out for my retrospective rundown of 2025.

    Don’t forget to share if you found it useful, interesting or insightful.

    Get in touch if you have any recommendations, and if you find it of use, this is now appearing on Substack as well as LinkedIn.

  • Counterinsurgency by David Kilcullen

    Counterinsurgency was one of several books that seemed interesting and that I bought during the COVID-19 lockdown in 2020 which I am slowly working my way through.

    Counterinsurgency by David Kilcullen

    David Kilcullen

    David Kilcullen is a former Australian military officer, who is an academic working at University of New South Wales, Canberra. Back in 2005 he advised the US government for a year while it dealt with insurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan. He has since been advising various companies about aspects of international studies.

    Counterinsurgency

    Counterinsurgency is a collection of his writings for military and academic journals. It covers everything from a tactical guide to officers dealing with local communities to the history of Indonesia post-independence and its efforts to combat East Timorese looking to become independent.

    Kilcullen’s Counterinsurgency interesting to read for several reasons:

    • Accessible writing: he writes really well making his subject areas very accessible to enquiring minds. For an academic, it was refreshingly jargon-free and articulated complex situations simply.
    • His how-to guides for US military officers serving in Afghanistan gave me an insight that I previously didn’t have from the media coverage.
    • As someone who had worked on Indonesian market campaigns for Indofoods and Qualcomm, knowing more about this complex country was rewarding. Kilcullen provides an accessible window into two points in the post-independence history of Indonesia.

    One of the key things that I took away from Counterinsurgency was the fragility of knowledge in organisations. Much of the work that Kilcullen is doing in the first part of the book was instilling hard-won knowledge that the world’s militaries had learned from TE Lawrence tormenting the Great Arab Revolt onwards including Vietnam, various American cold war campaigns, the British in Malaya and Northern Ireland.

    Militaries put a lot of effort into capturing the history of conflicts and spend a lot of time on lessons learned. This is far more effort than organisations generally put into place to learn from the likes of marketing campaigns, yet Kilcullen’s writing was valuable because that knowledge seemed to be slipping through the cracks of militaries.

    If you have an enquiring mind about world affairs and history, I can recommend Counterinsurgency as a good read. Other book reviews can be found here.

  • 2025 NSS (national security strategy)

    I read the 2025 US National Security Strategy (NSS) so you don’t have to when it came out at the end of November 2025. What’s interesting about these NSS documents is that they set a tone that will be difficult to turn around over the next five to ten years.

    2025-National-Security-Strategy

    I have taken the document at face value as it mirrors many of the talking points of US politicians. I have looked at the document through three lens:

    • Ireland
    • European Union
    • UK

    (I live in the UK, I am an Irish citizen and Ireland is part of the European Union).

    Some of its key European diagnostics are accurate (but could be also said of the US):

    • Declining birth rates
    • Uncontrolled migration (the authors consider African and muslim migrants to Europe particularly problematic)
    • Economic stagnation (the US is in a similar place outside of the top performers of the NASDAQ)
    • Deindustrialisation (again a problem that is repeated in the US)

    The recently released NSS from the Trump administration represents a an end to an American-led west. It replaces “collective security” with ‘transactional realism’ and targets the European Union’s current political trajectory as a ‘civilisational realignment’. By comparison Russia makes little to no appearance in the document and China is considered mostly in terms of economic power rivalry. 

    While the US has declared victory in major conflicts via aggressive unilateralism, it now seeks to  dismantle “globalist” structures. For Ireland, the UK, and the EU, all are now facing challenges from the US as well as Russia, China and Iran.

    European impact

    The NSS outlines four pillars that directly impact transatlantic relationships:

    • The US views NATO as a burden-sharing network, not a permanent umbrella, and explicitly threatens to withhold support from “free-riders”.
    • “Reindustrialization” is the highest priority. The US will use tariffs to force supply chains home. it considers net zero efforts as an economic suicide act.
    • The US will bypass EU institutions to cultivate relationships with rightwing populist parties. It views Western Europe’s current migration and social policies as “civilizational erasure”.
    • A re-assertion of the Monroe Doctrine. The US claims total dominance over the Western Hemisphere and warns European powers against interfering there.

    Impact & Mitigation Strategies

    🇮🇪 For Ireland

    • The NSS explicitly mentions a “sentimental attachment” to Ireland. Dublin must ruthlessly exploit this cultural link to secure exemptions from new tariffs, bypassing Brussels where necessary.
    • Reframe Ireland not as an offshore tax hub, but as a ‘secure node’ in the American supply chain. Emphasise that Irish pharma is safer than Asian alternatives and relies on highly-skilled professionals.
    • Ireland’s military neutrality is a liability in this document. it isn’t in a defence agreement with the US and he country can’t meet the 5% spending target that the US expects of ‘allies’. Instead, it must heavily invest in cybersecurity and transatlantic cable protection, framing this as its contribution to “collective security” without violating neutrality.
    • Ireland needs to plan, which would take longer to execute; to have a version of Singapore’s poison pill or pufferfish defence strategy. But this would be adapted for Ireland’s own context and needs in order to maintain its neutrality and sovereignty. 

    🇬🇧 For the United Kingdom

    The US questions whether demographic changes in the UK will make it an ally in the future. However, the UK is better positioned than the EU to pivot.

    • The NSS seeks “fair, reciprocal trade deals”. The UK should prioritise a bilateral Free Trade Agreement, offering alignment on US export controls (especially regarding China) in exchange for market access.
    • The UK cannot afford 5% GDP on defence immediately, but it can get closer than the EU. An option would be to position itself as the “unsinkable aircraft carrier” and the primary partner for the US “Golden Dome” missile defence project, solidifying the special relationship through technology transfer rather than just troop numbers.
    • The US Administration hates “regulatory suffocation”. The UK can aggressively deregulate its financial and tech sectors to mirror the US model, making it the preferred “docking station” for US capital in Europe.
    • Longer term the UK needs to de-risk critical parts of its economy from the US, and work with other European nations to think about what it would do to have a successful a non-US NATO if the NSS document goes to its natural conclusion.

    🇪🇺 For the European Union

    The Threat: The document is openly hostile to the EU project, viewing it as a mechanism that “undermines political liberty”. It seeks to encourage internal dissent by supporting right wing populist “patriotic parties”. The 5% defense target is designed to break the current European social contract model.

    • The 5% demand is likely a negotiating tactic to force 3% or 3.5%. The EU must immediately announce a massive, coordinated purchase of American military hardware at least in the short term, (while investing in European, friend-shored (Australian, Canadian, Korean, Japanese, Singaporean and Turkish) substitutive systems in the longer term.) The short term move buys tactical goodwill and addresses the immediate capability gap.
    • The US priority is winning the economic war with China. The EU has some leverage if it aligns 100% with US export controls and sanctions on Beijing. Brussels must trade access to the Chinese market for security guarantees from Washington in the short term.
    • The NSS attacks Europe’s “radical gender ideology” and “Net Zero” focus. (The origins of these beliefs are actually American in nature, a nuance the NSS authors fail to appreciate). To maintain relations, the EU Commission may need to de-politicise trade talks in the short-term, with a view to de-risking in the longer term. The short term trade focus purely on transactional economics and dropping social/climate conditionality in dealings with the US.

    Summary

    The 2025 NSS is a US roadmap for a post-European world.

    • Don’t appeal to “shared values” or “international law.” The NSS explicitly rejects “idealistic” foreign policy.
    • Offer concrete, transactional benefits: secure supply chains, purchase orders for US weapons, and alignment against China.
    • Move towards a European and friend-shored defence procurement and sustainment over the longer term, as the US may no longer be the arsenal of democracy in the future, if you take the NSS at face value. 
    • Plan to replace specialist US systems over time as access and replenishment may diminish and have processes to takeover NATO governance in the absence of American leadership.

    You can find the US National Security Strategy here.

  • Mico + more things

    Mico – A vibrant new way to talk with Copilot | Product Hunt – Strategy wise I have mixed feelings about it. People are already anthropomorphising LLMs and the full impact of that is still yet to be understood – I don’t think its universally good. However, we’ve already got there with Mico as a character. I imagine that fluent objects like Mico does make services stickier.

    In this respect Mico looks like the kind of moral trap Meta, Bytedance have fallen into on their social media platforms.

    Then there is the Clippy trauma now encapsulated as a drop of fleum – but that’s age bracketed so likely means nothing to younger cohorts.

    On the other hand from a marketing effectiveness perspective, if Microsoft use Mico in brand advertising it might work well as a fluent object and boost their brand building performance. Reminded me a lot of British Gas’ Willo the Wisp character.

    Business

    The Pulse: Amazon layoffs – AI or economy to blame? – The Pragmatic Engineer

    China

    A Proud Superpower Answers to No One – by Ryan Fedasiuk – interesting mix of inward-looking and hubris.

    The Loop: How American Profits Built Chinese Power

    Consumer behaviour

    Everyone is totally just winging it, all the time | Psychology | The Guardian

    The Lonely New Vices of American Life – The Atlantic – Booze is down and weed is up, and that’s doing something to Americans as a nation.

    Culture

    Keep the Faith: Inside the modern northern soul revival | Farout magazine – I remember going to Northern Soul nights at the 100 Club on Oxford Street several years ago. Like house, it never disappeared it just went underground.

    Finance

    Sam Altman says OpenAI is not ‘trying to become too big to fail’ | FT and Sam Altman’s pants are totally on fire – by Gary Marcus

    FMCG

    Huggies maker Kimberly-Clark to buy Tylenol maker Kenvue for $40 billion | Axios

    Gadgets

    Moflin | CASIO – an LLM-powered answer to the Furby of the dot com era

    Hong Kong

    Hong Kong’s slumping commercial property market lures savvy tycoon-linked buyer | South China Morning Post – Savvy investors, including a buyer of a floor at Opus in Mid-Levels who is connected to the family of a Cambodian Chinese tycoon, are pouncing on Hong Kong’s slumping commercial property market to snap up bargains.

    The 12th floor of 18 On Lan Street, a Ginza-style commercial building in Central, was handed over to Surplus Inc for HK$34 million (US$4.4 million) on Friday, according to Land Registry records. That represented a 65 per cent loss for the previous owner, Zhou Shubo, who bought the floor for HK$96 million in 2013.

    Kanika Sam Ang was a director at Surplus, according to Companies Registry data. Sam Ang has been associated with the family of tycoon Tony Tandijono, who owns Cambodia-based President Airlines, Phnom Penh casino Holiday Palace and a travel agency in Hong Kong.

    Ideas

    Dubai Chocolate Gives the UAE a Taste of Genuine Soft Power | TIME

    The Prophet of the Stateless Age: What Ian Angell Saw Coming

    Innovation

    New drivetrain technology for off-road vehicles moves safely in difficult terrain | TechXplore

    Sweden, Ukraine to develop new weapons together | Spacewar

    Japan

    Japan Public Markets Under Attack – by Jesper Koll

    Sony launches cheaper Japan-only PlayStation 5 console

    Luxury

    Inside Burberry’s lost year — and the battle to bring back its magic | Dark Luxury

    Materials

    Good vibrations: Ceramic material harvests electricity from waste energy | TechXplore

    Media

    Major Porn Studios Join Forces to Establish Industry ‘Code of Conduct’ | 404 Media – Adult Studio Alliance is founded by major porn companies including Aylo, Dorcel, ERIKALUST, Gamma Entertainment, Mile High Media and Ricky’s Room, and establishes a code of conduct for studios.

    ReelShort and More: The Microdrama TV Series Gold Rush Is Here | Hollywood Reporter – following the Chinese media industry

    Online

    Gen Z Men So Scared of Getting Filmed They’ve Stopped Dating | Rolling Stone – It ends up fueling mistrust in many young men and can turn interactions into battlegrounds where boys feel they must protect their egos. Over time, empathy can go away and suspicion takes its place. Instead of feeling comfortable being genuine, sometimes they second-guess every word or message, wondering how it might be judged, shared, or mocked. But then it takes a turn and that’s why young men may retreat into online spaces that confirm the suspicions they have and help to reinforce negative stereotypes about girls. This causes a Cold War among genders where each side is suspicious of each other and doesn’t have empathy. In these divided spaces, interactions become games of defensive accusation and people grow untrustworthy of one another. – Failing is part of success and of life

    Perplexity strikes multi-year licensing deal with Getty Images  | TechCrunch

    Ritson: Despite Snoop and Katy, Menulog’s collapse was inevitable – Mumbrella

    Security

    Theft Bisect – via Matt Muir ‘This exists because, seemingly, the Met Police are too dumb to make this themselves’ – you can read an explanation as to the ‘why’ and the ‘how’ behind its existence here, but generally this is just a smart idea, simply-executed.‘

    Iridium develops compact chip for robust global GPS protection | Space Daily

    CCP Wartime Decisionmaking | ChinaTalk

    Australian spy chief accuses China of IP theft and meddling; experts say remarks reflect certain Australian officials’ attempt to mislead public – Global Times – An Australian spy chief on Tuesday accused Chinese security services of large scale IP theft and political meddling and said China failed to understand how their Western counterparts operate. The remarks came on the heels of comments by Australia’s Defense Minister Richard Marles, who hyped up China’s “military build-up.”

    Chinese experts criticised the series of statements, saying they reflect some Australia politicians’ anxiety and bias toward China’s technological and military progress. Moreover, they said the spy chief’s remarks reveal an arrogance rooted in the belief that Western political system is superior – Global Times is a Chinese government published newspaper.

    Software

    ChatEurope – slow and would have been ok a few years ago

    Nvidia faces Washington heat over alleged Huawei ties | DigiTimes – US lawmakers are ramping up scrutiny of China’s AI and semiconductor sectors, tightening oversight from corporate ties to capital flows to reinforce Washington’s edge in the global AI competition.

    Mozilla announces an AI ‘window’ for Firefox | The Verge

    $) Kimi Kimi on the Wall – by Kevin Xu – Interconnected

    Taiwan

    Mainland Chinese police offer cash rewards for tips on Taiwan’s ‘terrible’ influencers | South China Morning Post – trying to influence Taiwan influencer discussions

    Technology

    Microsoft CEO says the company doesn’t have enough electricity to install all the AI GPUs in its inventory – ‘you may actually have a bunch of chips sitting in inventory that I can’t plug in’ | Tom’s Hardware and Investors need to look beyond the ‘bragawatts’ in AI infrastructure boom | FT

    Why Value Outlasts Valuation – On my Om

    Web-of-no-web

    Waymo In The Fast Lane | The future party – Waymo now allowed on select freeways in the US

  • Tahoe + more things

    Tahoe

    Another year, another macOS. Tahoe is sensibly unambitious but it has raised some ire amongst Mac users. You can tell how unambitious Tahoe was, when CNET had to do an article showing you how common app icons have changed because you otherwise probably didn’t notice. I know I didn’t.

    Tahoe is neither here nor there as a release for me. I haven’t found features that are ‘can’t live without”. The app interface changes feel different for the sake of being different, but I quickly got used to them.

    In terms of quality it still feels a bit ‘beta’-ish but I hope that the bugs get ironed out over time.

    • The pop-up window to select my accent over the ‘o’ in my given name gets blanked out for some reason.
    • When performing certain actions, the browser chrome all turns white.

    Otherwise things have been fine so far. My anti-virus of choice launched an update soon after Tahoe came out. As has my VPN client and numerous utilities and apps that I use for work, or just keeping my Mac tuned up.

    I have a Brother mono laser printer to connect up, (as my long-suffering HP unit finally gave up the ghost after a decade of service,) which might be a bit of a trial if Reddit is anything to judge by.

    Last Week on My Mac: Tahoe’s elephant – The Eclectic Light Company – this critique points out the kind of issues with Tahoe that implies it isn’t the Macintosh operating system of Steve Jobs with its historic focus on art principles and typography right from the beginning.

    China

    From ‘guochao’ to ‘zìxìn’: China’s new era of cultural confidence | Jing Daily

    Why anti-involution feels anti-Chinese? | Following the Yuan

    Dutch seizure of chipmaker followed US ultimatum over Chinese chief | FT – the judgement paints a bit more of a nuanced picture with two independent actions. It also explicitly states that the government order is not final yet (and at that point would still be open to appeals). The actual matter involved is a (significant) breach of fiduciary duty by Zhang Xuezheng and the holding company (Yuching). Cited issues were:

    • Placing of orders to another Wingtech subsidiary in China (that is in financial trouble) far exceeding demand (such that the expectation is that a significant share of the stock would need to be scrapped as it would not be able to be used in time)
    • Replacing 3 people with banking authority (including the CFO) with 3 other people, without financial background, one not an employee of Nexperia at all. All in the context where urgent US sanctions mean that independence from China is important for continued operations of the company. The court called this “Voor een onderneming van de orde van grootte van Nexperia grenst een dergelijke handelswijze aan roekeloosheid” (“For a company in the order of size of Nexerperia these actions border on being reckless”).
    • For the replacement no motivation was provided, prompting the chief financial officer and the chief legal officer from their own fiduciary duties as directors to object (and also to ask the court to investigate/intervene)
    • Stated intent to dismiss existing directors (without motivation) or asking for mandatory consultation from the workers council.

    As to the decisions:

    • Suspension of Xuezheng as director/CEO
    • Temporary appointment of a new non-executive director (with power to make final decisions)
    • Place all (except 1) share under management/safekeeping with a lawyer
    • This all motivated by (very) signifcant breach of the fiduciary duty, not based upon an Dutch government action. The application of the Entity list on Nexperia as subsidiary was a significant contextual driver though (as in the duty to minimize corporate risks).

    Consumer behaviour

    Piper Sandler Completes 50th Semi-Annual Teen Survey | Piper Sandler – teen spending down 6 percent compared to last year. Another point was that Dr Pepper was their favourite drink ahead of Coca-Cola, which makes this activist investor’s interest even more salient: tarboard builds stake in Keurig Dr Pepper after unpopular Peet’s deal | FT

    Economics

    UK risks higher inflation becoming entrenched, IMF warns | FT

    Health

    Mirador fundraising raises hopes of revival in US biotech market | FT

    Ideas

    Everything Is Television – Derek Thompson

    Japan

    Anime activism – Matt Alt’s Pure Invention – I didn’t realise that in 1978 the president Marcos of the Philippines had banned a whole genre of anime (giant robots or mecha) due to the influence of Voltes V on Filipino student activists.

    Marketing

    Post | LinkedIn – The Future of Brand Building Begins Where Commerce Meets Creativity. – or P&G applying the radio soap opera format to the 21st century

    Stopping agency burnout: the fight against ‘insidious’ work cultures and ‘inaccurate’ timesheets – Campaign found a long-hours culture continues to exist in adland, with pitching, client demands and poor role-modelling by managers part of the equation. 

    In the current climate of staff cuts, lingering threats of AI replacing the workforce and agencies dealing with economic constraints, late working – and the chance of burnout – continues to be a risk.

    Shrinking teams can potentially lead to more demands being placed on remaining employees. WPP and Interpublic each cut thousands of staff from their global workforces in the first half of 2025, on top of headcount reductions in 2024. Last year, the collective global headcount across the “big six” holding companies declined by 1.6%, the first fall since the post-pandemic rebuild. 

    WPP boosts AI marketing with $400mn Google deal | FT – I would be concerned if they weren’t using video generators like Veo and Google Gemini – which does make me wonder what Mark Read was up to?

    On the importance of good strategic writing in using AI: AI interfaces and the role of good writing | by Nick DiLallo | Oct, 2025 | UX Collective

    Media

    Apple sued over use of copyrighted books to train Apple Intelligence | Yahoo! News

    Google designated with “strategic market status” by UK Competition and Markets Authority – The Media Leader

    Exclusive | Advertisers Push Big Tech to Adopt Standards for Transparency in Ad Sales – WSJ

    How We Automated Content Marketing to Acquire Users at Scale | Spotify Engineering – Insightful blog post from Spotify’s ML team: they implemented their own pre-ranking algorithm to select the best ad variants to deploy to their advertising channels in their user acquisition campaigns. 

    Spotify’s marketing team developed a creative production pipeline that could generate and deploy ad creatives to marketing channels based on listening habits in a geographic region. The problem they encountered was that they were generating creatives from a high-cardinality dataset, and the number of variations they were uploading to their channels was overwhelming those channels’ ability to optimize ads effectively. 

    Spotify’s solution was to build a pre-ranking algorithm using XGBoost that would determine which creatives to upload to the channels. Their ML pre-ranking model outperformed a simple heuristic model, with 4%-14% lower CPRs and 11%-12% higher CTRs. The ML model utilized a rich set of features to predict sub_percentage (the percentage of contributed subscriptions from the artist) and relative_cps_ratio (the share of the artist’s cost per subscription in the marketing campaign) for premium subscriptions, whereas the heuristic model used three fixed features. The model is retrained daily based on a defined lookback window.

    Moreover, although this was deployed before ATT, the team found that ATT didn’t impact its performance, as training relied on aggregated data.

    This obviously remains a relevant issue as advertisers scale the volume of their creative production through generative tools. While this pre-dates Meta’s Andromeda initiative for pre-ranking, it’s still likely relevant for most other channels (and, depending on the volume of creative uploaded, Meta).

    Perplexity Pauses New Advertising Deals to Reassess Ambitions | AdWeek – brands are rethinking how to spend their budgets. Chan said many advertisers are moving away from performance-focused, traditional search and towards top-of-funnel brand awareness—an area Perplexity may pursue down the line.

    Online

    US Amazon Prime Membership Finally Hits 200 Million | CIRP – Amazon Prime finally hit the 200-million-member mark in the US, after several quarters of slow, but steady growth toward that milestone.

    Note: CIRP estimates the number of individual Amazon shoppers who use Amazon Prime. That includes multiple family members for many subscribers, so this estimate is higher than the number of US households that pay for an Amazon Prime membership.

    Amazon knows the difference between Prime shoppers and paid Prime member households, so as US Prime membership approaches its limit, there may be a growing focus on bringing those numbers closer together. Amazon does not want to reduce the number of Amazon Prime membership users, but it certainly would not mind having more paid memberships associated with them. We expect Amazon to continue its efforts to attract members by emphasizing the benefits of Prime, rather than policing shopping and limiting Prime membership sharing.

    CIRP estimates 200 million US Amazon customers had a Prime membership as of the September 2025 quarter. That is an increase of about 6% from 189 million US Amazon Prime members in the September 2024 quarter and up very slightly from our 198 million member estimate last quarter.

    Retailing

    Why Did Walmart Just Buy a Shopping Mall? – The New York Times – reminds me of the local mini-shops that used to be inside Kwik Saves in many towns

    Technology

    China’s ‘Darwin Monkey’ is the world’s largest brain-inspired supercomputer | Live Science

    I had been having lunch in the Google canteen with colleagues, and then came back to my desk, checked an email newsletter and this arrived: Smartphone-powered AI predicts avocado ripeness | Newsroom | Oregon State University

    Web of no web

    Palmer Luckey’s Anduril launches EagleEye military helmet with help from buddy Zuck | The Verge

    Amazon launches Echo devices designed for Alexa+ | Amazon