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The math, and Meituan’s potential, can be dizzying. China’s urban areas have 2,426 people per square kilometer (6,283 per square mile), almost eight times the comparable U.S. population density. While the U.S. has 10 cities with 1 million or more people, China has 156. Deliveries in China cost about $1, compared with $5 in the U.S., iResearch says. Meituan retained about 63 percent of the country’s meal delivery market at the end of 2018, according to Bernstein Research, even as Alibaba spent billions over the previous several years to capture most of the rest.

The growing conflict and its costs have delayed some of Wang’s other initiatives. He put on hold an expansion into ride-hailing after setting up money-losing experiments in two cities. He says he’s now focused on getting each delivery person to drop off 40 percent more orders. Wang estimates Alibaba, based on its balance sheet, can afford to spend at its current level for about 12 more months, but he expects to last years.

Source: Meituan and Alibaba Have Reshaped Food Delivery in China

Wang had learned from his mistakes. He expanded quickly, to hundreds of cities in 2011, but spent less recklessly than his competitors did. While two leading, homegrown group-discount sites flamed out and Groupon shut down its China business, Wang focused on food and dining to develop steady repeat customers. “They thought the business was group buying,” he says of competitors. “We thought the business was e-commerce for services.” By 2013, with rivals continuing to fade away, he shifted from volume discoun

Source: Meituan and Alibaba Have Reshaped Food Delivery in China

JOSH ELMAN WANTS to fall in love. He wants to make this investment. But the startup founder sitting across from him—bland and too confident for his own good—is making it difficult. The founder is not so much playing hard to get as clueless.

Source: What Really Happens in a Greylock VC Pitch Meeting? | WIRED

If you want people to pay attention to you someday, you have to eventually write so good that people will recommend it to their friends — in fact, so good that they want to be the first one to recommend it to their friends for the implied good taste.

No growth hack or brilliant content promotion idea can save you long term if you don’t have a sufficiently good writing.

So if you’re trying to grow your traction around a mediocre writing, fix it now. Don’t try to avoid the problem by writing lazy listicles or looking for aggressive tactics. And if you’re just starting out, take the time to write stories your audience loves, no matter how long it takes.

Source: How we got 11.3 million pageviews without the growth hacking bullshit

WHAT CAN EMPLOYERS DO AS AN ALTERNATIVE?

Instead of calling employees out the things they do incorrectly, bring awareness to positive results. When someone has a good outcome, call attention to it. Drawing attention to excellence will increase the likelihood of further success and better your team.

Publicly highlight the good instead of privately chastising for the bad. For instance, if someone botches a report, though you may want to stop to call attention to the incorrect way, highlighting a correct example can have a more significant impact.

Make sure that the praise that you give is always specific. When you notice something awesome, say exactly why it’s awesome. Tell your employee exactly what caught your eye instead of delivering blanket praise. Say how the action made you feel and why.

When someone asks for feedback after making mistakes, it may be tempting to start listing out the things that they are doing wrong to help them improve. Instead, ask them what things they feel that they feel they are currently doing well. Focusing on the positive primes the brain with oxytocin that makes the brain more open to finding new solutions. Following this, ask how they have solved problems in the past, which should be easier for them to arrive at following the boost of oxytocin you primed them with. Asking these questions can lead them to deduce what actions they should take to better their performance in the future.

Source: Here’s How Feedback Is Actually Hurting Your Team

I do the very best I know how — the very best I can; and I mean to keep doing so until the end. If the end brings me out all right, what is said against me won’t amount to anything. If the end brings me out wrong, ten angels swearing I was right would make no difference.
-Abe Lincoln

To those who can hear me, I say, do not despair. The misery that is now upon us is but the passing of greed, the bitterness of men who fear the way of human progress. The hate of men will pass, and dictators die, and the power they took from the people will return to the people. And so long as men die, liberty will never perish… Don’t give yourselves to these unnatural men, machine men with machine minds and machine hearts! You are not machines! You are not cattle! You are men! You have the love of humanity in your hearts! You don’t hate! Only the unloved hate, the unloved and the unnatural… The kingdom of God is within man, not one man nor a group of men, but in all men! In you! You, the people have the power, the power to create machines. The power to create happiness! You, the people, have the power to make this life free and beautiful, to make this life a wonderful adventure… Let us use that power. Let us all unite.
— Charlie Chaplin

There are many paths to investment heaven (and we’ve written on the topic before). The diversity of working approaches demonstrates that. However, fundamentally, any useful approach must do three things:

1. It must work in all conceivable financial environments.
2. It must be within the “circle of competence” and “circle of interestingness” of its user.
3. It must meet the moral criteria of its user.

I believe the system below satisfies the first criterion, and allows for all three.

Source: An Investment Approach That Works

The passive mindset is defined by an attitude, an assumption that life happens to you and you’re not responsible. People with this mindset also say things like, “Why does this always happen to me?”
When the language you use about things going on in your life is passive, you slowly convince yourself that nothing is your responsibility. This makes you feel good because it absolves you from responsibility. It means you don’t have to look inside yourself and change anything.  It means you’re not in control.
Well I have news for you: you are in control. You’re in control of how you respond to the ups and downs of life. You’re in control of how you talk to yourself.
An active attitude means ownership. You own your failures. An active mindset means you are responsible for things you control.

Source: Yes, It’s All Your Fault: Active vs. Passive Mindsets

Ignatius offers three imaginative exercises if no clear choice emerges:

• Imagine that a friend comes to you with the same situation. They describe their choices, pros and cons, and their thoughts and feelings about these proposals. What would you advise them?
• Imagine that you are on your deathbed. Looking back at your life, and assuming you made the decision in question, how do you view it from that perspective?
• Imagine a conversation with the divine. Those who do not believe in a God could have an imaginary conversation with someone they loved and trusted and who has passed away. What does this person say to you about your options? Would they be pleased, disappointed or neutral about your decision?

Source: What a 16th-century mystic can teach us about making good decisions