Sunday Snapshots (12th April, 2020)
Sunday Snapshots (12th April, 2020)
The Hidden-hand Presidency, Apple and Dark Sky, Jake Tran, Whereby, and Tigertail
Hey everyone,
Greetings from Evanston!
I hope you and your loved ones are staying safe, connected, and curious – in that order.
I was overwhelmed by your response to last week's offer to have a chat with me. I had great conversations with folks all the way from LA to Tokyo. Thanks to everyone who reached out. The offer still stands – if we’ve never met and you'd like to chat, just reply to this email or send me a DM on Twitter. I would love to get to know you.
Multiple people also reached out saying that they loved the discussion of the book on contemporary art – I even got a couple of photos of folks ordering and reading it. These make my day. If you ever read a book that I suggest, please send me a photo!
With that out of the way, let's get into this week’s Snapshots which will cover:
How Eisenhower operate a hidden-hand presidency
Apple's acquisition of Dark Sky
My new favorite YouTube channel
A Zoom alternative worth considering
The archetypical immigrant story
And more!
Book of the week
How do you re-define the most powerful position in the world? How do you manage the multiple reigns of power you have at your disposable when every move of yours is scrutinized? How do you combine formal and informal organizational structures to produce the results you want?
Everyone leader faces these questions at some level. According to Fred Greenstein, President Dwight "Ike" Eisenhower knew the answers to these questions – answers which have seemed to allude recent presidents. During his Presidency, he drew on his vast experience including drafting the bills that led to the formation of the Filipino army under General MacArthur in 1935 to his numerous diplomatic connections from his time as the Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces during WW2.
Here's how he did it:
First principles: Eisenhower understood that the President has dual objectives. He or she is a head of state and they are also the chief executive of the government. In most countries, these roles are separated. Britain has a monarch who is the head of state and a Prime Minister who is the chief executive. India has a President who is the head of state and a Prime Minister who is the chief executive. Russia is the same. This dual objective makes things difficult for Presidents. They have to be "above it all" as a head of state should be but still "get into the mud" as is required for a chief executive to be effective. Understanding this unique position underlined by the constitution is the first step. And this first understanding directly led to his first weapon of choice.
Acting dumb: Whenever asked by the press about anything or anyone controversial, Ike would just say, "I'm not aware of that" and then answer in moral generalities or aphorisms. This led to his image as a "good-natured bumbler." But it allowed him to ease tensions and avoid "engaging personalities" that were hell bent on derailing his administration's agenda. Eisenhower is not alone in deploying the bumbling old man act. Successful venture capitalist Mike Maples Jr., billionaire investor Warren Buffet, and the-ever-present-in-this-newsletter Lyndon Johnson, all employed this trick to great success with some variation of the line, "I'm just a simple Southern boy looking to get your counsel and understand the matter at hand." But the administration has to be aware of the core issues of the time. So if he told the press he didn't know, who did?
Chief of Staff position: I've written about chief of staffs before. This position was pioneered by Eisenhower. He chose former New Hampshire governor Sherman Adams to be his chief of staff and modeled the position based on his experience in the army. Adams’ job description included "funneling information, framing decisions, and acting as a broker." He was thought to wield as much power as his boss. Eisenhower often deferred questions to Adams in public, but was strict in his treatment in private. Adams actions were always cleared in advance through meetings or memos by Eisenhower. This allowed Ike to make a clean image of the head of state while also remaining an effective executive.
Joe McCarthy: While the first half of the book outlines the strategies that Eisenhower used to run an effective administration, the second half shows how he used these tools to outflank Joe McCarthy and his false crusade against socialism in the United States Government. While refusing to engage with him in public as engaging with him would have given his cause increased legitimacy, he used the press, allies in Congress, and his clean image to defuse the specter of McCarthyism. If you're interested in how to deal with baseless claims, this section is particularly engaging and instructive.
The Hidden-hand Presidency is a unique book. It reads more like a very long profile of the inner mechanics of the Presidency and how adept Ike was at operating this machinery. I highly recommend it.
Business move of the week
Apple acquired my favorite weather app, Dark Sky. I wrote about the app about 9 months ago:
This Chicago summer has not been very …. summer-y. The last couple of weeks remind me of the Philippines during typhoon season – hot, wet, and humid. To time my commutes, I’ve been been using the Dark Sky app. It blows the default Weather app on the iPhone out of the water with its accurate and to-the-minute predictions. I never thought such a simple app could improve my daily routine so much. If you live in a city where it rains or snows a lot, it’s well worth the $3.99.
Dark Sky is really good at predicting rain. It's ok with the current weather and other forecasts, but it excels at predicting rain conditions in the next 5-60 minute window. Dark Sky currently uses machine learning algorithms to predict them. This means that they use a series of inputs like temperature, altitude, wind, etc. so they do not need to know the specifics of any particular location. This is great because not every place in the world has accurate sensors, yet Dark Sky can provide you predictions for these places. But every strength has a corresponding weakness. Because Dark Sky is not using hyperlocal data, but it is predicting hyperlocal weather, it is prone to ignoring micro-climates. For example, in Evanston, it ignores the wind chill coming off of Lake Michigan when calculating the temperature. Apple can fix this, because as it turns out they have more than 900M potential sensors in the world. Your iPhone can relay hyperlocal weather conditions – so instead of Dark Sky predicting that it is hailing outside, it can know for a fact that it is hailing outside.
I'll be honest, I'm not 100% sure what Apple is doing here. Here are some potential reasons for the acquisition from their perspective:
Services: They can get direct revenue from app purchases since Dark Sky has been in the top 10 paid apps for the past 10 years. However, this doesn't make much sense because it already gets 30% of this revenue because of App Store rules. The remaining 70% is probably peanuts compared to the scale of the company and not worth the effort. Another services play could stem from the fact that Dark Sky has an API that others apps can use to get their predictions. For example, Gruhub could use the Dark Sky API to predict that it is going to rain in your ZIP code today and send you a coupon to encourage you to use them. This revenue could be significant. Another potential play is to build out a premium weather subscription service along the lines of what they have done with News.
Apple Car: There has been noise about an Apple Car since I can remember. If they were to develop a car, hyperlocal weather data is an important input variable for any self-driving system. Given that they would be competing with Google which is at the forefront of self-driving technology through their Waymo arm, this would be helpful in not only getting the weather data and owning it, but also not giving access to it for Google's efforts.
Beef up privacy: Weather apps typically need access to your location. This is a nightmare for a privacy-obsessed company like Apple (although I always wonder how strong the obsession would be if they were in the advertising business and not the differentiated hardware business). By owning one of the core weather APIs, they could eliminate the need for location access for these apps and instead have everything route through themselves.
Optionality: Apple already owns the stack for most of their native apps. Weather was a missing piece. When you have more than $200B in cash on hand, you can afford to splurge around and build optionality.
I'm sure this list suffers from a failure of imagination. If you have ideas about what they might be up to here, let me know by replying to this email.
There is plenty to be skeptical about with this move. They've already announced that the Android app will be phased out in July and the Dark Sky API will be phased out at the end of 2021. That's not good news for indie weather apps that depended on the relatively lower cost Dark Sky API for their inputs. The hardware-first disruption model has been effective for Apple – they already have significant power in the music and podcasting industry through this approach. It'd be a shame if I had to depend on a single large company to tell me if I have to take an umbrella with me tomorrow morning on my state-sanctioned once-a-week grocery run.
Random corner of the week
I've been really enjoying Jack Tran's videos on YouTube. It takes on powerful institutions and describes how they influence our systems to remain powerful. The productive value is impressive (I especially like the use of movie scenes) and it covers a wide range of topics. Some of these topics include:
How companies make money from wars
How institutions like the IMF and WTO hurt poor countries
How Mega Churches prey on the gullible
How mass surveillance helps governments subvert democratic institutions
Movie of the week
Crazy Rich Asians for the 99%. That's how I would describe the recent Netflix release, Tigertail. It’s a story of immigration. And of immigrants. It's a story that is deeply personal and one that many will relate to. It's a story of regret. Of the road not taken. Of the life not lived in the service of economic opportunities.
The montages are A+. The soundtrack is A+. The acting is A++.
It's easily one of my favorite movies ever. Go watch it right now.
App of the week
Just like most of us, I've been spending a decent part of my days on Zoom. It's ideal for larger meetings. It pairs well with FaceTime which I mostly use for personal calls. But Zoom has been criticized for circumventing key security protocols on the Mac and iOS. While I can't make my university move to another platform, I can make that switch for personal use.
This is where Whereby comes in. It straddles the line where you're not in a large setting but you don't feel comfortable enough to share your number with someone. I've been using it for the last couple of weeks and can recommend to someone who is looking to fill this middle ground.
Meal of the week
This is pretty much my breakfast every morning these days. Bagel and cream cheese with the Trader Joe's "Everything but Bagel" seasoning, one whole avocado, two eggs, and side of hummus. All downed with the help of a glass of cold brew. Perfect for a day of Zoom classes or as fuel for an afternoon writing Snapshots :)
That wraps up this week’s newsletter. If you want to discuss any of the ideas mentioned above or have any books/papers/links you think would be interesting to share on a future edition of Sunday Snapshots, please reach out to me by replying to this email or sending me a direct message on Twitter at @sidharthajha.
Until next Sunday,
Sid