Online dating has easy parallels to other online social experiences that if taken too seriously can lead to dubious outcomes. A dating app is like social media in that there are lots of people broadcasting themselves, making connections, and seeking validation. You might “like” a photo on Instagram as you might right-swipe on a photo […]
Each of the 3 major US consumer credit bureaus (CCBs) – Equifax, Experian, and Transunion – are an agglomeration of regional credit agencies, some dating back to the early 1800s. That a once fragmented industry consolidated into oligopoly is a natural consequence of the benefits that come from pooling data: a lender will go with […]
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U-Haul is a weird company. It rents moving equipment and self-storage space but also sells annuities. It boasts a ubiquitous brand synonymous with do-it-yourself moving that until recently was buried beneath the non-descript banner of its parent company, Amerco. It runs the 4th largest self-storage operation in the US by square footage but is rarely […]
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(this should be read as a companion piece to the Dollar General post from a few weeks ago).Like Dollar General and Wal-Mart, Dollar Tree traces its origins to variety stores in the Southeast. In 1963 K.R. Perry, a barber and Ben Franklin variety store franchisee, opened the K&K Five and Ten in Ward’s Corner, a […]
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In Scottsville, Kentucky at the dawn of World War 2 the market for “selling the good stuff to rich folks” was already taken, so J. L. Turner and Sons sold “the cheap stuff to the poor folks” instead. For the first 16 years of its life, the budding enterprise trafficked in close-out merchandise, first as […]
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Before exploring the competitive concerns that have sent shares cratering nearly 60%, it’s worth reflecting on what it is that got people excited about Adyen in the first place. In a typical online transaction, a shopper’s credit card details are picked up and encrypted by a gateway, then routed to the appropriate merchant acquirer. The […]
No analysis of the North American railroad industry would be complete without a discussion of Hunter Harrison as no single person has had a bigger impact on the operating performance of Class 1 railroads over the last 25 years. A lifelong railroader who began his career oiling railcars in the early ‘60s when he was […]
Part 1 of this series offers a historical survey of how today’s Class 1 rails came to be. Parts 2 and 3 start at the ground level with the very basics of freight carriage, build up to an understanding of how an industry that had destroyed over most of its 200-year history managed to turn […]
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