Self-checkouts are dividing the nation
Plus a look at the many faces of coworking.
Dear Reader,
This week saw WeWork declare bankruptcy in the US to protect it from creditors, using up another of its nine lives. It still remains in operation in the UK but leaves you wondering how coworking spaces are fairing more broadly.
It seems like the dream. A nice space where you can work and not feel like you have to order ten lattes like when you’re at a café. Chuck in an events space and some exercise classes and you’ve got yourself a party. If you were to design a city (or company) of the future, you’d have hubs that mean employees don’t have to commute too far but can be in a working environment. It would honestly look something like WeWork. So, why is coworking having such mixed fortunes?
The serviced office sector is growing overall and whilst companies that target high-cost areas like London struggle with rent there are plenty of hubs away from urban centres that are doing just fine. WeWork has had a number of factors going against it including tech growth targets when it’s a property business, a less than scrupulous founder and the pandemic didn’t do it any favours.
Coworking is competing with businesses cajoling their employees to get back to the office, but if someone could crack a more flexible working model that gives people the opportunity to work from a hub location a couple of times a week, it could evolve the mass-commuting situation everyone’s a bit reluctant to go back to.
Send me location,
Hugo
Working from wherever
The Business of Stuff
The Stuff
Bob Iger promises another $2 billion of cost cuts 🐭 – Mickey is getting another haircut as Iger says studios will make less content but focus on quality. Streaming has become a war of attrition in recent years with all sorts of guff pumped out as streamers tried to capture audiences. With Iger back at the reins the conglomerate has seen its fortunes improve as it returns $0.82 a share compared with an expected $0.70 by Wall Street.
M&S revamping its offering has paid off as it returns to FTSE 100 ✨ – have you been to an M&S food hall recently? It’s a truly wonderful experience. They’ve essentially copied the Wholefoods vibe but it’s more indulgent and you can leave without having to sell an organ (just). I’m also told their clothes have improved (I’ve never been adverse to dadwear so wouldn’t notice either way to be honest). Catering to a younger audience is paying dividends (quite literally – they’re paying a dividend) as their stock price rallies and they edge back into the UK’s 100 most valuable companies.
North-south divide on self-checkouts becomes apparent 🛒 – Booths (known as the northern Waitrose) are getting rid of almost all their self-checkouts which have also struggled to gain traction in the US. Obviously for those of us living in London they’re the dream because you can buy your Higgidy Piggidy pie without having to make eye contact with anyone but it seems places with more warmth don’t like them quite as much.
Luxury ecommerce groups are struggling as designer labels catch up 👗 – for years companies like Net-a-Porter did well out of the fact high-fashion brands refused to invest in their online presence as they fixated on the in-store experience of buying a ten grand handbag. Actually anyone who’s going to spend ten grand on a handbag is happy to do it from their sofa and having realised this they now all have much better websites which makes life harder for the Farfetchs of this world.
Romance novels are once again the top-selling genre in fiction 📚 – it’s great that people still read books and ironically TikTok (BookTok) has played a big part as people come for the aesthetic and leave with the warm fuzzy feeling of a good read. Sales of romance novels have been growing in double digit percentages. Romance readers churn through books at twice the speed of everyone else, who are presumably busy trying to wade through Ulysses or something.
Ex-Goldman partner stars in her own cabaret about the experience of retiring 💃 – Stacy Polley had worked in fixed-income sales for almost 25 years when she left the investment bank, took up golf and is now starring in a Broadway performance about retirement. Ever the high-achiever, she is also an adviser to Blackstone and on the board of Blue Owl.
John Lewis gets Christmassy with a carnivorous plant 🌵 - a particularly surreal number from them this year, the message appears to be “look just forget about traditions, why even bother wrapping up presents? Just give me the headphones and let’s get on with our lives.” There’s going to be a lot of Venus flytraps given as gifts this year which I’m here for, although ecological impact tbc.
Lidiane Jones takes over as the chief of Bumble 🪲 – Jones, most recently CEO of Slack (now owned by Salesforce), will become CEO in the new year, with Whitney Wolfe Herde (founder of Bumble) remaining as executive chair. Dating app shares have been struggling as Gen Z gets all fancy with IRL dating.
Harvard study shows the impact of AI on the capability of consultants 🥸 – of 758 consultants, those with access to Chat GPT-4 completed 12.2% more tasks, 25.1% times quicker and produced higher quality results 40% of the time. When they tried using AI in ways that were beyond its capabilities however the results were generally worse than if done by a human.
AI will cut the cost of animated films by 90% 🫎 - DreamWorks co-founder Jeff Katzenberg has said that generative AI will massively reduce the cost of producing films like Shrek and Kung Fu Panda. Just as you can ask ChatGPT to recommend a cocktail based on Van Morrison’s back catalogue or write you a poem about the wallpaper in The Shining, models Make-A-Video are able to produce video outputs that would have previously taken hundreds of hours to produce.
Quote of the day
“Gentlemen, you can't fight in here. This is the war room.”
— President Merkin Muffley (Peter Sellers), Dr. Strangelove