ITK Daily | August 9

Happy Tuesday.

To be ITK, know this:

Kenya votes: The winning candidate needs 50 percent of the votes, plus one more. If a candidate doesn't secure this, a second round of voting will take place.

Five of Latin America’s six biggest economies are run by the left.

Read this: Bolsonaro is afraid of going to prison, and he’s right to be Vanessa Barbara

+ “I’m letting the scoundrels know,” President Jair Bolsonaro told supporters last year, “I’ll never be imprisoned!”

NATO counties helping Ukraine:

+ Canada has committed 225 troops to a UK-led program that will train Ukrainian volunteers to fight Russian forces

+ Over the coming months, 10,000 Ukrainians will be flown to the UK to complete a five-week training course

+ The Biden administration announced on Monday that it send an additional $1 billion in security assistance to Ukraine as the war with Russia continues into its sixth month

Read this: Vladimir Putin is in thrall to a distinctive brand of Russian fascism Economist

+ That is why his country is such a threat to Ukraine, the West and his own people

+ Understanding where Russia is going under Mr Putin means understanding where it has come from. For much of his rule, the West saw Russia as a mafia state presiding over an atomized society. That was not wrong, but it was incomplete.

+ For Ukraine, this means a long war. Mr Putin’s aim is not only to take territory, but to crush the democratic ideal that is flourishing among Russia’s neighbors and their sense of separate national identity.

+ Like much else coming from the Kremlin, fascism is a top-down project, a move by the ruling elite rather than a grassroots movement.

+ Only “united and strong state power, dictatorial in scope and state-national in essence” could save it from chaos.

+ Fascism works by creating enemies.

+ As long as Mr Putin is in power, Russia will build alliances with China, Iran, and other anti-liberal countries.

+ “Nazism permeated the flesh and blood of the people through single words, idioms and sentence structures which were imposed on them in a million repetitions.”

The UK govt is preparing for a winter energy crisis ‘reasonable worst case scenario’ that could see:

+ Peak demand surpasses the capacity

+ Emergency measures for 4 days in January

+ Including organized blackouts for industry and even households

Sri Lanka defers visit from Chinese ship over India’s concerns: WSJ reports Beijing complains of ‘gross interference’ over the delay of the docking of a survey vessel following New Delhi’s complaint that it would raise potential security risks.

+ South Korea targets 2026 production of a homegrown fighter jet

Tesla is offering half-off its full self-driving package and more for loyal customers in China.

For many American MNCs, China is their most important market.

Boardrooms know it.

The Pentagon knows it.

The Zhongnanhai knows it.

+ @pstAsiatech: Currently more than 288,000 digital human-related enterprises in China, of which around 90% were established within the last 5 years, and 64% were established over the past year. Research firms: virtual humans generated RMB 6.22 billion in 2021, set to hit 270 billion by 2030.

Read this: US takes aim at Chinese and Russian influence in Africa strategy Nikkei

+ The US promises to advance food security and infrastructure development in sub-Saharan Africa while warning of growing Chinese and Russian influence in a new strategy for the region unveiled Monday.

Nice advance work here:

Mar-a-Lago: You have to assume the Mar-a-Lago documents in question are military in nature, high-level, top secret, and classified. Anything short of that will invite the fury of House GOP Oversight of the FBI in 2023.

Fox News Channel is on war footing over the Mar-a-Lago raid.

+ "This is insane." -- Jesse Watters

On making predictions: An expert in any given specialty should make predictions, even frequently. The predictions are not made to be correct. The predictions are made to empower what is possible in any given specialty.

Read this: RIP big bull market (1982-2022) Andy Kessler

+ From start to finish, the Dow rose from 776.91 to 36800, a 9.6% annual rate.

+ "Don’t confuse a bull market with brains."

+ "Forget last cycle’s winners, find new ones—next-generation machine intelligence, geothermal energy, gene therapy, insta-vaccines, nuclear fusion"

+ "or, more likely, something completely out of left field that starts out expensive, is dismissed by skeptics and then gets relentlessly cheaper over decades, creating wealth for society."

For Meta to change and renew its business model:

1. Executives need to be globally remote workers

2. The company needs global talent not limited to Silicon Valley

3. The company needs to go B2B + enterprise solutions

As top executives flee Silicon Valley, Meta becomes truly virtual Richard Waters

+ Zuckerberg and his staff are no longer sitting cheek by jowl in their office but dispersing to different countries and time zones

Tiffany & Co made $12.5m from their CryptoPunks pendant drop: It sold out in a whopping 22 minutes.

MasterCard launches a BTC-backed rewards card in Australia.

Bloomberg: Crypto companies are spending $2.4 billion on sports sponsorships

+ Crypto . com, Coinbase, and FTX are moving aggressively to match the marketing muscle of carmakers, beer brands, and other big-money advertisers.

SoftBank posted a whopping $23 billion loss for the three months to June, thanks to the tech selloff’s effect on its Vision Fund, which itself posted a $26 billion loss in May.

+ “The world is in great confusion.” -- SoftBank founder and CEO Masayoshi Son

"Books to inspire action": On this episode of Brigadoon Radio, Miranda West and I discuss the future of publishing, working with a book agent, not paying attention to what others are doing, the balance between creativity + commerce, and the latest happenings at Do Book Co.

You can watch the discussion and access the show notes here.

RIP: Issey Miyake

Hermès is selling a Wouf flying disc for your puppy @ $220:

+ "Hermès Sellier Paris" embossed detail

+ Details in relief inspired by obstacle bars

+ Recycled, natural, and eco-responsible materials

Seems reasonable.

At the start of 2020, I pledged to wear more ties, and weeks later, a pandemic.

Are ties to blame?

Am I to blame?

Ties are now a political act of civil disobedience.

Read this: The tie is dead: Here’s how men can still dress well with a free neck Damien Woolnough

+ "Politicians should understand that ties are no longer mandatory but a fashion choice"

Bye sunshine.

@nymetrowx: Sunset in NYC on Wednesday is at 8:00pm. The sun won’t set later than 8:00pm in NYC again until May 9th, 2023.

Read this: In Beyoncé we trust? Om Malik

+ "Artists have figured out that — herd mentality is good for business. As long you know how to herd the herd" -- @om

Serena Williams announced that she will play the final tournament of her multi-decade career at the 2022 US Open.

Read this: Serena Williams says farewell to tennis on her own terms—and in her own words Vogue

+ @joycejshen: must read. @serenawilliams wrote something so real in @vogue that I am sure many women can relate to.

Read this: Lewis Hamilton: The F1 superstar on racism, his future, and the shocker that cost him a championship Vanity Fair

+ The maverick driver can handle anything. But spiders. And traffic.

Formula 1 plans year-round events at the Las Vegas facility.

The Premier League brings in far more revenue than any other European soccer league: The league’s combined revenues climbed to a record $6.2 billion in the 2021-22 season, nearly as much as the next two leagues combined.

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