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THE HEADLINES
Estimated Read Time: 3 minutes and 36 seconds
DEATH OF THE SALES, MAN
Hear that? It’s the hopes and dreams of brick and mortar outlets being crushed by online retailers.
JCPenney, the preferred back-to-school shopping mecca of middle-class, suburban moms was dealt another blow on Friday. Its shares dropped 10% on the news that it will be laying off 360 employees and had missed analyst expectations for Q4 2017. The main culprit? You guessed it: shoppers moving online (read: Amazon).
Of the 360 jobs cut, 230 will be at HQ in Plano, Texas. And this isn’t JCPenney’s first rodeo, having trimmed the fat to the tune of 138 stores, and 5k employees in 2017. But it could be worse, they could be Sears.
The struggling retailer has one trick up its sleeve that even Amazon can’t combat, though. Its unique strategic partnerships include in-store Sephora shops and InStyle branded salons. Despite slumping mom-jean sales, the company plans to bring on 6.5k stylists to bolster its salon staff.
Water Cooler Talking Point: “So their airtight strategy appears to be layoff corporate staff and hire like it’s going out of style at the retail level. Seems like a sound business decision to allow the minimum wage store management to right the ship.”
“ALEXA, STFU.”
Real G’s move in silence like lasagna … and so did Alexa on Friday. In a case of life imitating art, Amazon’s assistant losing its voice was eerily reminiscent of the company’s Super Bowl ad. Unfortunately, there are no reports of Cardi B or Rebel Wilson picking up Alexa’s slack.
There was a large increase in Alexa related complaints on Friday, however. Alexa’s responses ranged from “sorry, something went wrong” to “I’m not sure what went wrong” accompanied by a red ring death by technological inadequacy.
Did we mention Friday was a no good, very bad day for Amazon? Their “industry-leading” cloud service had network issues as well, impacting customers like Atlassian and Twilio. Reports indicate that network failure(s) at Amazon Web Services was the root of the issues and that Jeff Bezos has since ripped out the still-beating heart of the network engineer responsible for all those 1-star reviews.
Water Cooler Talking Point: “Chaos ensued Friday as Alexa users actually had to use the apps on their phones to figure out the weather or how to cook their rump roasts. I imagine March 2, 2018 will forever be known as Black Friday.”
A DAY LATE AND A YEN SHORT
Ever have that feeling you’re forgetting something? Like, say, a dedicated autonomous vehicle research division?
Toyota plans to spend a lot of money to address the self-driving elephant in the room. The $2.8B investment will fund the Toyota Research Institute-Advanced Development or TRIAD for short. Think someone should tell them that the Triads are an international organized crime syndicate?
The unfortunately named Tokyo based group will consist of up to 1k employees whose sole focus will be meeting Toyota’s self-imposed 2020 deadline to put autonomous vehicles on the road.
But the road won’t be easy as the Japanese automaker has had a tough time attracting coders to its home turf, citing the language barrier and lower pay on the island nation. Their solution? All TRIAD employees will speak English and presumably lower their standard of living.
Water Cooler Talking Point: “Doesn’t it seem like Toyota is a little late to the game? Google and Uber are putting cars on the road and Toyota is just starting to look for some space in a WeWork and posting jobs on Monster.com. Get your sh*t together, Toyota.”
IN OTHER NEWS
- LEGO will begin making bricks from plant-based plastic as part of a larger initiative to feature sustainable products by 2030. Of course, this shouldn’t be too difficult because by 2030 no kids will be playing with LEGOS.
- Donald Trump has made it clear that he doesn’t plan to back down from a worldwide trade war. Mostly because it will be easy to win. His administration has indicated that it has no intentions to make any exceptions on the recent steel and aluminum tariffs. Because ‘Merica First.
- Pharmaceutical manufacturers Biogen and AbbVie have some good news and some bad news: they’ve managed to create an effective Multiple Sclerosis treatment but said treatment causes serious inflammatory brain disorders. The medication has since been pulled off shelves.
- BlackRock, the worlds largest asset manager, plans to create funds excluding gun makers and will show customers options for removing the investments from their portfolio.
- US indices were mixed Friday:
- DOW: -0.29%
- S&P 500: +0.51%
- NASDAQ: +1.08%
TALKING SHOP
Professional motivation, tips, tricks, hacks & resources carefully-curated by yours truly. Something you’d like to see featured? Shoot me an email at team@thewatercoolest.com
“PIVOT! PIVOT!”
Life comes at you fast. Just ask the guy who made Alexa’s laryngitis commercial play out IRL. His faux pas likely burned every bridge from Mountain View to Menlo Park. So what’s a (probably) lanky, white, Stanford grad to do? Pivot. That’s what.
Unsolicited Advice: “Meandering through your career without a proverbial bailout bag is like flying into a dogfight without an eject button and parachute. You never know what sort of turbulence you’re going to encounter and when it might be time to hit the reset button on your job choice. So always be armed and ready for battle with a well-curated network, running list of skills and interests and an open mind (think: “outside the box” career, not “Joshua Tree” weekend).”