Steven McJobs's Profile

Interesting read, thanks for putting it together MC. Quite a few large organizations, including Nike, are working towards initiatives around reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, replenishing aquifers (water positive models), waste treatment etc. While all of their efforts are commendable, I wonder if a primarily for-profit institution can ever run sustainability initiatives that put the environment over economic gain. Some organizations claim to hold themselves accountable to “double bottomlines” or “triple bottomlines” – but more often than not, a skeptic can argue that given the lack of real regulatory frameworks and enforcement such sustainability initiatives fail to make a meaningful impact. What are some interesting approaches that governments/trade bodies have adopted to incentivize organizations to pay as much attention to environmental initiatives as they do to initiatives purely for financial gain. Can such regulations go beyond just environmental conservation/replenishment initiatives to include social impact initiatives?

Interesting read, thanks Judy. The WTO legitimizes safeguards – emergency protection from imports – under certain conditions, especially in events where local industries have been hurt or face the threat of severe economic downturn due to surges in imports. In the case above, can Boeing justifiably demonstrate that its business, in the United States, has been hurt solely by “aircraft imports?” Further, safeguards ought to come with an expiry date (they can’t be imposed indefinitely). Can Boeing, and the broader airline industry, demonstrate that their businesses run the risk of severe economic downturn in this case indefinitely?

Highly illuminating post, thanks Brandon. At 3 Euros per carton, and eventually at 1 Euro per carton – Starship is/will stay a highly expensive service for shipping low-value & low margin consignments. If they were to counter this concern by only using this as a niche service to deliver high-value high-margin goods on, they might be able to achieve the scale and utilization levels required to make the service cheaper over time. Additionally, they run the risk of failure in areas with poor civic infrastructure (image processing based navigation systems may not work as intended) and also a grave risk of theft/damage to their assets (vehicles) on the streets. How should they go about thinking about these concerns?

1. Should downstream consumers of cobalt, and not just the mining/refining companies, be held accountable for exploitative practices in the cobalt mining industry?

2. Quite a few CPG companies hold themselves accountable to a triple-bottomline, at least on paper. What would dictate a migration towards such responsible reporting practices in the mining industry in general?

1. Would a centralized cloud deployment (read AWS) with real-time encryption and some sort of a distributed hot-standby solve for AWS’s current issues? Could this then be superior to a distributed/decentralized cloud architecture?

2. Who would own, mediate and evaluate supply/demand levels in a given network and ascertain the dynamic equilibrium price of the service? How would the value of this service, priced on a Sia-coin base system, stay cognizant of other fiat currencies/represent the Sia coin’s market value?