Friday, November 29, 2019

Wednesday, November 27, 2019

raceAhead: "Good holiday of colonial oppression!"

On culture and diversity in corporate America.

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November 27, 2019

(Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota.)Kalaniana_Island—Getty Images

This is the web version of raceAhead, Fortune’s daily newsletter on race, culture, and inclusive leadership. To get it delivered daily to your inbox, sign up here.


Here’s your short holiday-week in haiku.


"Good holiday of
colonial oppression 
to you and yours!" she


waved goodbye and grinned.
We were standing by the
side of the road in


Pine Ridge, November's
last warm day, sage smoke still swirled.
She taught rock guitar


to girls on the Rez. 
"They need to learn their power, 
they need a big voice


to fight and stay safe."  
The day before Thanksgiving
now belongs to her.


#fortunefeast

Don't forget to post pictures of the holiday food that bring you comfort and joy on Instagram with the hashtag #fortunefeast. (Or just email them to ellen.mcgirt@fortune.com.) We might feature your photo in a future raceAhead edition.


Enjoy your time off with friends and family. We are grateful for your big voices. RaceAhead returns on December 2. 


Ellen McGirt
@ellmcgirt
Ellen.McGirt@fortune.com


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On Point



(Robert Franklin—South Bend Tribune via AP)


Pete Buttigieg called Michael Harriot and they talked
Yesterday, Harriot posted Pete Buttigieg is a Lying MF , a blistering critique of an interview Buttigieg gave in 2011 on what ails the Black community. It created such buzz that the presidential hopeful called him to talk about it. Buttigieg gave the world a gift by providing Harriot another reason to write another wrenching and essential piece. It also sounds like he mostly listened. It's a good start. "Pete Buttigieg didn't want to tell me his side of the story. He didn't excuse himself by explaining that the comments referenced by the article were made years ago," says Harriot. "He didn't even try to explain his plan for black America." It's also a master class in how to have an opinion: Harriot watched the entire 58 minute interview he later critiqued , had facts to share beyond his own experience, and then explained exactly why Black voters support Black candidates.
The Root


A "toxic culture" on America's Got Talent got Gabrielle Union fired
Popular judges Gabrielle Union and Julianne Hough were both cut from the show, despite being credited with providing a much-needed ratings boost. At issue is an alleged "toxic culture" behind the scenes, one which failed to curb racist humor, and one which gave oppressive feedback to both women about their physical appearance. "Union was subjected to a very specific critique — that her rotating hair styles were 'too black' for the audience of 'AGT,' a note she received over half a dozen times," reports Variety. Union had also critiqued the racial insensitivity of certain performers and was ignored.
Variety


Japan sees a surge in support for gay marriage
What remains to be seen is if country-wide legal protections will follow. Some local jurisdictions have been acknowledging same-sex marriages, and many of Japan's strict corporations have become more welcoming. Yet in spite of some public gains, progress feels fraught. "The Japanese people think we should recognize same-sex marriage," Taiga Ishikawa, the first openly gay man elected to the country's Parliament told the New York Times. But plenty of politicians "still have outdated views on this," or believe "that same-sex relationships are a 'hobby' or will add to the declining birthrate."
New York Times


 


On Background


Telling a new kind of Thanksgiving story
Esmerelda Bermudez and her husband quit celebrating American Thanksgiving ages ago. It made them uneasy. "As immigrants from El Salvador and Armenia, we know about the sorrow of having our pasts rewritten, our genocide and massacres, time and time again, neglected or denied," she writes. But having a child made that decision more complicated. "I wanted to call my friend Jason, a full-blooded Navajo and the only Native person I've ever known," she says. "But it felt odd to ask him, out of the blue:  Hey, Jason, how do I explain to my daughter what really happened to your people?" Even without a blueprint, they worked out a way. A wonderful, must-read essay.
Los Angeles Times


The foodways of skid row
Skid row, in downtown Los Angeles, is a devastating place to visit, a true indictment of the country's inability to deal with the homelessness crisis. Lucas Kwan Peterson, a columnist and video producer for the Los Angeles Times food section, recently visited skid row for an unusual episode of the "Off Menu," video series. Instead of reviewing tony eateries and meeting up-and-coming chefs he spent time with the people who are providing fresh, healthy food, job training, and more to those trapped in chronic poverty.  Homelessness is up 12% in Los Angeles County to nearly 60,000 people and up 16% in the city of Los Angeles alone, where the number tops 36,000. "Skid row can be a rough place, but it's also a neighborhood," says Peterson. "Not everyone is the same, and not everyone is there for the same reasons." But they all gotta eat.
Los Angeles Times


What technology can learn from the wisdom of the crowd
This lively analysis from "geek comedian" and commentator Heather Gold takes what she's learned about communicating in front of a live audience and helps identify what makes for a good conversation."I believe the single most important element in aiding someone to speak in a group is the feeling of being listened to with interest," she says. Easy to say, but hard to do. She singles out poorly designed video chat as a barrier to communication; the main features coded into Google Hangouts and Apple'sGroup FaceTime, make the image of the speaker REALLY BIG, while making all the listeners equally small. She raises fascinating questions about what this means for marginalized people in the workplace, and then explores a remedy. "Let's think about what this would look like as a piece of software design," she posits. What if the design actually helped speakers connect with the most attentive listeners? Also: What if we did that in real life?
Medium


Tamara El-Waylly helps write and produce raceAhead.


.

Content From SAP

Reinventing Employee Experience with HXM
HXM, the next evolution of Human Capital Management, equips organizations to create the kind of engagement that drives better business results. Read the blog.
Are you thriving at work?


.

Quote


"Those early Pilgrims were thankful for what had happened to them, and we should be thankful, too. We should just be thankful for being together. I think that's what they mean by 'Thanksgiving.'" 

Charlie Brown, A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving



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Data Sheet: AirPods is nothing without Apple

Your daily download on the business of technology.

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November 27, 2019

This month, a somewhat serious meme has been going around on Twitter and elsewhere purporting that Apple’s AirPods, if spun off as a separate company, would be valued at $175 billion. That’s the lofty level of real companies like Oracle and Adobe and Cisco Systems.


The boast isn’t entirely crazy. It’s quite possible that Apple’s wearables unit will bring in $20 billion in sales next year and have a gross profit margin around 35%.


But to get to the $175 billion valuation, you have to assume that investors would value a gadget maker at 17 times its sales or 25 times its profit. Not only would that be far more than Apple itself, which trades for about 4 times its sales or 22 times its profit, but it also ignores the market’s harsh view of a whole host of similar struggling companies. As we’ve said more than a few times around here, hardware is hard.


A long securities filing made public by Fitbit brought the true rejoinder to the AirPods silliness. The proxy form details Google’s $2 billion bid for the company and urges shareholders to vote in favor of the deal. It’s mostly pretty dull reading, but then you get to an eye-opening chart. Fitbit’s investment bankers drew up a list of comparable companies, like GoPro and its action cameras or Sonos with smart speakers, to help decide how much Fitbit might be worth. With only a few exceptions, these companies were trading at a bottom-of-the-barrel valuation of 1 times their sales or less.




Investors don’t dislike independent hardware companies—they hate them. Apple and Garmin are a rare exception. Software and service providers trade at much higher levels: Microsoft sells for almost 8 times its sales, Google for 4 times, and even unloved Uber for almost 3 times. Tragically, many hardware companies were valued for much more when they first went public. Fitbit’s stock price dropped 80% from its IPO before Google swooped in. By then, it was trading for a meager 0.4 times its revenue.


Maintaining an independent consumer hardware business is a losing battle in which companies get squeezed between cheap imitators and much larger rivals with more control. If AirPods went out on their own, they’d probably suffer the same fate.


Aaron Pressman


Twitter: @ampressman


Email: aaron.pressman@fortune.com


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NEWSWORTHY


David and Goliath. Ad tech company Inform sued Google this week, alleging that the search giant has monopolized the online advertising market and illegally driven out competitors. Google, which is facing similar investigations from regulators around the world, declined to comment.


Home is where the heart is. Apple CEO Tim Cook faced some criticism for standing by while President Trump lied about a factory that makes Apple goods. But within the company, Cook's moves are drawing support. A survey conducted on Fortune's behalf on the anonymous workplace social network Blind found that 81.6% of Apple employees support Cook's efforts to engage the president on matters that "shape policy in Apple's favor."


Clearing the underbrush. Have an old Twitter account you're not using? Use it or lose it. Twitter says it will start deleting accounts that have not been logged into for six months or longer.


Nothing more than feelings. Amazon's Alexa digital assistant is about to get a bit peppier, and a bit sadder. The company said on Tuesday that it has created the capability for developers to make Alexa respond with a more emotional speaking style. Here, for example, is Alexa at its most disappointed. That might be the appropriate tone in which to deliver the news, according to newly leaked documents, that a major Amazon warehouse in New York has a higher injury rate than the average sawmill or steel foundry.


FOOD FOR THOUGHT


Speaking of Fitbit and its brethren, why do some of the most original new products come from startups in the first place? A review of research by three business school professors finds that, paradoxically, having fewer resources can help stir creativity and foster innovation. As Oguz Acar, Murat Tarakci, and Daan van Knippenberg explain in the Harvard Business Review, companies must balance constraints and freedom to generate the most innovative solutions:


According to the studies we reviewed, when there are no constraints on the creative process, complacency sets in, and people follow what psychologists call the path-of-least-resistance – they go for the most intuitive idea that comes to mind rather than investing in the development of better ideas. Constraints, in contrast, provide focus and a creative challenge that motivates people to search for and connect information from different sources to generate novel ideas for new products, services, or business processes.


.

Content From Guild

Education as a Corporate Strategy


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See how Guild does education benefits better


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IN CASE YOU MISSED IT


What Makes People Love Waze More Than Google Maps and Apple Maps? Its Army of Unpaid Human Editors By Alyssa Newcomb


'Catastrophically Huge': New Labor Laws Aimed at Independent Contractors Could Be a Huge Drag on Uber and Lyft Stock By Erik Sherman


HP Has a Good Quarter, While Xerox Plans to Go Hostile By Jonathan Vanian


Facebook Has Run an Ad Falsely Claiming Sean Hannity Is Trump's New Running Mate for Almost a Week By Alyssa Newcomb


Best Buy Stock Hits All-Time High on Strong Pre-Holiday Season Results By Phil Wahba


The Death of the Tech Unicorn Has Been Greatly Exaggerated, According to Goldman's Top Tech Banker By Rey Mashayekhi


These Tech Companies Spend the Most on Lobbying By Nicolas Rapp and Brian O'Keefe


BEFORE YOU GO


It's that time of year when Hollywood gives us the good stuff: all the Oscar-contending movies. The new version of Little Women directed by Greta Gerwig is getting great reviews. But as you sit around the Thanksgiving table tomorrow, don't follow the cues of actress Saoirse Ronan, who plays Jo in the movie. To get co-star Florence Pugh into the right frame of mind for family fight scenes, Ronan slapped her in the face. I recommend just passing the mashed potatoes.


Have a great Thanksgiving. We'll be back in your inbox on Monday.


Aaron Pressman


On Twitter: @ampressman


Email: aaron.pressman@fortune.com



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