Prof G Markets: Live From SXSW

The EU recently enacted two laws, the Digital Markets Act (DMA) and the Digital Services Act (DSA), each intended to make the internet safer and more equitable for both end-users and service providers. But analysts are divided on whether the new laws will have the intended effect.

Tired of competing head-to-head with other companies? Do you feel like your strategy differs little from the competition surrounding you? W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne suggest that the answer to competitive problems is to create a blue ocean: a brand-new market for an innovative idea, allowing your company to avoid competing with rivals—because it has no direct rivals.

In Blue Ocean Strategy, Kim and Mauborgne discuss how you can create such a market by focusing on your product’s characteristics that customers really care about while discarding the characteristics they don’t. This creates a new product offering that doesn’t currently exist, in a space without direct competitors.

In this guide, we’ll explore how to develop a blue ocean strategy, how to execute it, and how to anticipate potential problems. We’ll also look at how a blue ocean strategy aligns with other business strategy frameworks, and where it differs.

Has Big Tech made our lives better or worse? In The Four, entrepreneur and marketing professor Scott Galloway takes a hard look at four technology companies that dominate the modern marketplace: Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google (the “Four”). He argues that the success of the Four has had a profound and decidedly negative impact on our society, affecting everything from our privacy and our opportunities for career advancement to our free-market economy and even the functioning of our democracy.

In our guide, we examine the Four’s outsized influence on our personal lives as well as on society at large. We contrast Galloway’s ideas with those of other experts on Big Tech and provide additional background information to contextualize Galloway’s opinions.

Some market watchers are seeing signs of a growing bubble in the stock market reminiscent of previous bubbles like the dot-com bubble of the late 1990s and the commodities bubble of the 2000s. However, there are fundamental differences, too.

A massive bestseller now in its 12th edition, Burton Malkiel’s A Random Walk Down Wall Street provides a comprehensive and entertaining introduction to the world of finance. Malkiel leverages his experience as an academic economist and former Wall Street portfolio manager to explain for the lay reader the intricacies of security analysis, asset valuation, and investment theory. He also offers a wealth of practical investment principles that will be useful for novice and seasoned investors alike.

The Undercover Economist will help you think like an economist without boring you with endless graphs or complex math. By thinking like an economist, you’ll use principles like scarcity, price targeting, the stock market, and game theory to make better decisions every day. By understanding these economic principles, you’ll learn how economics operates in everyday life, why you make the economic decisions that you do, and what happens when these principles break down.

Bob Iger has had a long career—22 years at ABC, then 23 at Disney (after Disney acquired ABC). He started as a bottom-level crew member on television sets and eventually became CEO of Disney for 15 years. He led Disney through momentous changes in technology, global expansion, and its noted acquisitions of Pixar, Marvel, and Lucasfilm. He still looks back at his career in mild disbelief as an incredible, lucky ride of a lifetime.

This book is a retelling of his professional career, with his leadership principles woven in. You’ll learn why being an optimist is good for your career, how to take big risks, why you should always sweat the details, and how to fire someone respectfully.

In recent months, the White House, Congress, US armed forces, and more than half of US states have banned the Chinese-owned social media app, TikTok, from government-issued devices. There’s broad concern that TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, could share Americans’ personal data with the Chinese government, or push Chinese propaganda and misinformation. Some experts say the US should treat TikTok the way it wants other countries to treat American social media platforms—and use moderate measures to protect national security and citizens’ personal data. But Congress may not heed this advice.

In a vital update from NPR News Now, correspondents including Korva Coleman, Eleanor Beardsley, Kinnan Abdalhamid, and Bobby Allyn take us through the latest on global and domestic fronts. The battle for peace in the Middle East hits yet another snag, as Korva Coleman delivers a succinct breakdown of the collapsed cease-fire between Israel and Hamas, including the heavy implications and the subsequent surge in hostilities that have disrupted the region's pursuit of tranquility. Eleanor Beardsley delves into the nuances behind the allegations from Israel's Prime Minister's office, while grappling with the sobering reality of increasing casualties in Gaza.

On U.S. soil, Coleman brings the spotlight back home with the account of a tragic shooting of college students in Burlington, shedding light on the victims' Palestinian heritage and underlining the breached sense of security in academic institutions. The episode also covers the involvement of the FBI in a possible hate crime investigation, signifying a rise in concerns about gun violence and its underlying motives. Meanwhile, political ethics take center stage as the case of Congressman George Santos unfolds, examining the balance between allegations of federal corruption and the legal processes within the House of Representatives. Finally, Bobby Allyn explores free speech debates, centering on Montana's legal skirmishes over TikTok bans and data security, which paints a broader picture of the digital landscape and its regulatory challenges. Each segment underscores NPR News Now's commitment to delivering comprehensive, on-the-ground reporting.

Dive into "The Daily" with Michael Barbaro, Natasha Singer, and Frances Haugen as they tackle the controversial topic of social media's influence on youth, drawing stark comparisons to the legal challenges once aimed at the tobacco industry. This episode examines how state officials are following in the footsteps of those who curbed tobacco's reach—the same tactics now repurposed to protect young minds from the potential psychological harms of platforms like Meta's Instagram. The speakers unpack the cultural and mental health implications, especially surrounding the planned, yet controversial, Instagram for Kids and the damning insights from whistleblower Frances Haugen.

As the conversation unfolds, the speakers probe Meta's intricate design features that may encourage addictive behavior, such as endless scrolling and instantaneous notifications. They delve into the consequences these features have on young users, from fostering an addictive digital environment to exacerbating mental health issues through idealized digital beauty standards. While Meta defends its intentions—touting new user safety measures and disputing the claims against it—the podcast highlights the struggle to regulate the tech giant, touching upon the broader challenges in holding social media platforms accountable and the industry-wide push for change. This episode is a thought-provoking exploration of the high-stakes tug-of-war between technological innovation, commercial success, and the well-being of our most vulnerable users.