Bamboo Innovator Daily Insight: 11 Feb (Wed) – The classic allegory of ‘stone soup’ provides a lesson every entrepreneur should learn

Life

• The classic allegory of ‘stone soup’ provides a lesson every entrepreneur should learn: BI
• A Time for Fewer, Better Friends; As people get older, they deliberately narrow their social circles. Ties with close friends tighten; less meaningful relationships are discarded. WSJ
• The Act of Rigorous Forgiving: NYT
• TIM COOK: ‘Sitting is the new cancer’; Apple Watch will gently vibrate on his wrist to remind him to occasionally get up and move: BI
• The fear of not delivering that accompanied Ocado’s rise; Creating a business often requires self-belief bordering on the sociopathic: FT
• Five Ways to Reverse the Downward Spiral of Distrust: Strategy&
• Peter Thiel has never met a regulation he didn’t hate: Fortune
• Everything Is Awesome! Why You Can’t Tell Employees They’re Doing a Bad Job; New Mantra at Many Workplaces Is ‘Accentuate the Positive’: WSJ
• Malcolm Gladwell shares the worst advice he’s ever received: ‘It’s been done” : BI
• The Redefined No of the CFO; For today’s financial leader, decisions are based on strategy, not spreadsheets. Strategy&
• Your Lifetime Earnings Are Decided in the First 10 Years of Your Career: Bloomberg
• Ending the cycle of elect and regret: TheStar

Investing Process

• Booth Laird 2014 Annual Letter: Reflection On 7 Years: VW
• On the Perils of Management Access & Straying From Process: Our Adventure With Jones Soda: SSA

Greater China

• Credit insurer Atradius warns of spiraling payment problems in China as trade data for January signals the sharpest slowdown in domestic demand in five years: SCMP
• Jack Ma, Alibaba Navigate a Tangled Web in China: WSJ
• Political risks stalk China SOEs abroad: FT
• First online hospital in China starts services in Guangdong: WCT
• The ‘New Normal’ for Doing Business in China; While the business environment isn’t perfect for U.S. companies operating in China, the glass is still half full. WSJ
• China Stocks Become Asia’s Biggest Loser; Chinese Stocks Fall After 2014 Rally; Worsening Economy, Flurry of IPOs, Reliance on Borrowed Money Spell Trouble: WSJ
• Ageing China draws investors to its ‘hot as Internet’ healthcare sector: Reuters
• Hong Kong warns over digital currencies amid alleged bitcoin fraud: Reuters

India

• Beware of froth over India’s tech sector turning into a bubble; Hopes for a ‘mobile-first’ ecommerce model rest on questionable assumptions: FT
• Sahil Barua: Leading E-commerce logistics with Delhivery; The potential of ecommerce logistics is a no-brainer and Sahil Barua’s Delhivery spotted the opportunity before most in India: Forbes
• India’s ruling party trounced in Delhi in big blow for Modi; Winning power in India’s states is critical to control of the upper house of parliament, where Modi’s party lacks a majority and has been thwarted in its effort to pass reform: Reuters

Japan & Korea

• Korean companies still offer lowest payout ratios among big Asia markets: FT
• Loeb’s Third Point takes aim at Fanuc; A famed US activist investor is taking on one of Japan’s most obsessive companies in what promises to be an epic clash of cultures across the Pacific. FT
• Competitive lives of Korean superrich supermoms: KH
• Unconventional analysts thriving during hard times in Korea; Changing demands of investors reshaping a financial profession: JA
• Japan’s deflationary challenge caught in a bottle of ketchup: Reuters

ASEAN

• Foreign Ownership Cap, Divestments Loom in Revived Indonesian Banking Bill: JG
• OW Bunker accounting fraud fallout could lead to exit of Opet Singapore: BI
• Hard, soft or effete: Jokowi, choose your brand of power!: JP

Macro

• Tax avoidance as bad as bottom of the harbour schemes: TheAge
• Asian cities attract more overseas money than Switzerland: FT
• Sin stocks pay as alcohol and cigarettes beat sober rivals: FT
• EM bond allure fades as US rate rise looms: FT
• The inaugural Luxembourg tax-avoidance power rankings: Quartz
• Most CFOs are embarrassed by their companies’ tax avoidance schemes; just take a look at how Pepsi runs money through Luxembourg shell companies to “optimize” its tax bill: Quartz
• HSBC files: Swiss bank aggressively pushed way for clients to avoid new tax; Far from acting as passive party to clients’ tax schemes, HSBC Suisse marketed device to effectively sabotage European savings directive: Guardian
• Cash pilgrims and bricks of money: HSBC Swiss bank operated like cash machine for rich clients: Guardian
• Sri Lanka Cancels Casinos, Spotlights Asia Investment Risk Crapshoot: Forbes
• The Paratroopers of Crony Capitalism; Why give golden parachutes to executives who leave to enter government service?: WSJ
• Australia’s Property Boom Spurs Interest in ‘Granny Flats’: WSJ
• GMO Q4 Letter: Jeremy Grantham: ‘How On Earth Did I Miss This!’ Jeremy Grantham says that falling oil prices shouldn’t have been such a surprise, calling it his major regret for 2014: VW

TMT

• Tim Cook demolishes anyone who thinks Apple is about to get smoked by Chinese upstarts like Xiaomi: BI
• Google has a patent for a wearable that makes you smell better: Quartz
• SAP’s Bill McDermott Pushes Into the Cloud: WSJ
• Handwriting Isn’t Dead-Smart Pens and Styluses Are Saving It; Connected Pens and Improved Styluses Make Your Handwritten Notes Available on All of Your Devices: WSJ
• Apple: the first $700 billion company: Fortune, WSJ

Healthcare

• Healthcare: The race to cure rising drug costs; Critics are asking if the big pharma industry’s premium pricing model can endure: FT
• New Dosages of Old Drugs Are Used to Raise Their Prices: NYT

Consumer & Others

• Unilever must aim not to spread itself too thinly: FT
• Saving McDonald’s; With fourth-quarter earnings dropping 21% and global sales down, the company needs a back-to-basics turnaround. WSJ