Arvind's Newsletter

1.Musk's win on satellite spectrum over Indian billionaires -Ambani and Bharti.
Local telecom magnates Mukesh Ambani and Sunil Bharti Mittal have pushed for the government to auction off satellite broadband spectrum, rather than allocate it, a move that Musk vocally opposed. Hours after his criticism, Indian officials rejected the auction route that would have likely favoured  domestic players.

A simple assignment of spectrum may hand Musk’s company, the largest and most successful of its kind, a “first-mover advantage”, while an auction process would allow Indian players time to get their products market-ready, said the person close to Reliance.

2.Hyundai IPO: QIBs rescue India's biggest-ever offer

The success of India's biggest-ever initial public offering from Hyundai Motor India Ltd came down to one key factor: a strong response from qualified institutional buyers (QIBs). But the portion set aside for retail investors, who have been driving demand in the primary market this year, wasn't even fully subscribed.

QIBs, or large institutions, put in bids for 6.97 times the shares set aside for the category, according to the final subscription data on NSE. Muted enthusiasm from retail investors—bidding up to ₹2,00,000—meant the subscription for the category lagged at just 0.5 times.

The portion allocated to non-institutional investors, who put in bids ranging from ₹2,00,000 to ₹10,00,000, was subscribed 0.65 times.

Overall, the issue was subscribed 2.37 times.

3.Life in India is a series of bilateral negotiations conducted a thousand times a day; A long but
interesting essay by blogger Rohit Krishnan.

Excerpts from his essay:

“And that drives the character of life here.

Now, I am seeing the country properly after several years. And it’s a major change.

Visible infrastructure has gotten much better. Roads are good, well maintained, and highways are excellent. They built 7500 miles last year, just as the year before. And they’re fantastic…

But:

Living in a country built off of bilateral negotiations for everything is simultaneously the libertarian dream and an incredibly inefficient way to do most collective things. Ronald Coase told us this in 1960.

“if property rights are well-defined and transaction costs are low, private parties can negotiate solutions to externalities without the need for government intervention”

But Indian life is dominated by transaction costs. Every time a driver pokes his car into a turn when the signal’s not for him it creates friction that ripples through the entire system. 

Every time someone has to spend effort doing a 1:1 negotiation they lose time and efficiency. Horribly so.

…The reason this isn’t an easy fix is that the ability to negotiate everything is also the positive. 

When every rule is negotiable you get to push back on silly things like closing off a section of a parking garage with rubber cones by just asking.

 Life in the West feels highly constricted primarily because of this, we’re all drowning in rules.”

4.Consulting challenges: EY slims workforce for first time in 14 years; while Mckinsey overhauls China business cutting hundreds of its workforce

EY trimmed its global workforce in the past year as a slowdown in demand for its consulting services led the Big Four firm to post its weakest revenue growth since 2010. In an annual report published on Thursday, the accounting firm said it employed 393,000 people at the end of its fiscal year in June — about 2,450 fewer than the previous June and the first time in 14 years it has cut headcount. Revenue across the business was up 3.9 per cent on the previous year, stripping out exchange rate moves, to $51.2bn.

Meanwhile, McKinsey is overhauling its China business after cutting back on government-linked clients and reducing the unit’s workforce by nearly 500 people, about a third of the total.

To reduce security risks associated with doing business in China, the U.S.-based consulting firm has been separating its China operations from other global operations, people familiar with the matter said—a practice increasingly popular among multinational companies.

5.The end of the online password may have moved a step closer. 

The Fast Identity Online Alliance, FIDO, an industry group devoted to internet security, released new tools to help move more websites toward using passkeys — authenticators on your handheld device, which you unlock with your phone’s facial recognition, fingerprint, or PIN — instead of passwords, which it says are insecure and inconvenient.

Millions of people forget passwords, reuse them across sites, and have them compromised in data breaches. FIDO published a guide to moving to passkeys. More than 13 billion online accounts already use them, on platforms including Amazon, Microsoft, Nintendo, Google, Apple, TikTok and Paypal, Gizmodo noted.

6.The European Union opened the door to backing nuclear power to fight against climate change. 

Nuclear energy is the subject of a deep divide in EU politics — France relies on its fleet of reactors for electricity, while Germany has moved away from them. EU negotiators agreed ahead of the COP29 climate summit to accelerate “low-emission technologies,” including nuclear, a symbol of Europe’s shifting approach. 

Part of the change is a sense that small modular reactors(SMRs), cheaper and faster to build than traditional plants, are closer than ever to becoming a reality.

7.Amazon finally has a color Kindle, and it looks pretty good

The Kindle Colorsoft will retail for $279.99 and start shipping on Oct. 30. It will allow users to see the color of book titles and to add different coloured highlights to text.

The Colorsoft is based on E Ink’s Kaleido technology but uses an entirely new display stack for Kindles, all the way back to a newly designed oxide backplane that makes it easier for E Ink panel’s tiny bits of ink to move around quickly. The E Ink world has been working on similar tech for a while, and Amazon thinks it’s the key to making colour work well.

The Colorsoft has new LED pixels, and a new way of shining light through them individually to enhance colors. It’s also brighter than ever, to help the whole thing feel more vivid. Some of this tech also helped the new Paperwhite turn pages faster and easier, but it was designed to make Colorsoft work.

8.Las Vegas’ Sphere Will Get a Twin, as a Second Location Is Announced for Abu Dhabi in United Arab Emirates

 The UAE capital will be the world’s second city to open its own Sphere, the massive, glowing LED entertainment orb which debuted off the Vegas Strip last year with a $2.3 billion price tag and a 20,000-person capacity. The often memed venue at The Venetian is not yet profitable, but ticket sales for concerts by U2, Dead & Company, and the Eagles have been strong.

The “Capital of Capital” is undergoing rapid changes as it vies to become a top cultural and tourism hub. Already home to the Louvre Abu Dhabi, the city has an outpost of the Guggenheim and a Natural History Museum on track to open on Saadiyat Island next year.

Landing The Sphere is a win for Abu Dhabi’s tourism officials, too: The CEO of Saudi Arabia’s FII Institute Richard Attias told reporters last month that The Sphere’s owner is “overwhelmed by requests — and not just from the rich countries, who want their own.”