Review 

Ziyue Han (Dennie) has shared many meaningful ideas, but I cannot agree with her on some issues. In her blog, she wrote Zuckerberg had taken her social responsibilities and tried to help the people in the third world. In my opinion, the Internet cannot save the people in the Africa and Zuckerberg is not a social entrepreneur.

To start with, let me assume Zuckerberg does have that kind of dream for a social reason(Actually, I think he just wants to expand market), but I have to say if he really wants to save people in the third world by using the Internet, he is too stupid. First, if a person do not have water to drink and food to eat, will he or she care about the Internet. He will not. Compared with basic need to survive, the Internet is nothing. Second, if people have an access to the Internet, will the Internet help he or her learn more about health problems, such as diarrhea and malaria. Probably not. Because if he can surf on the Internet, he must have basic wealth to support him to use the Internet which means he can cure him just by going to hospital. As a result, he does not need that kind of knowledge.

As far as I am concerned, social entrepreneur is one of the most difficult jobs to do in the world because he has to take care of his business and the public interest at the same time. It is not an evil thing to not be a social entrepreneur, but pretending to be is evil.

Review

(Source: https://blogs.ubc.ca/chitleungleung/)

There are not too many companies who have both the ability and willingness to refuse 3 billion dollars offered by Facebook. However, interestingly, Snapchat was reported to have done that.

Chit Leung (Kenny) Leung believed that it was a bad decision to refuse the offer. Actually, I am not totally agree with him.

Before judging the decision whether it is good or not, we should know what are Facebook and Snapchat. Facebook is the giant in the social media which owned another application: very similar to Snapchat. Snapchat is a just photo messaging application.

Why does Facebook want buy this company when they have already got a similar one? It was because of the data: Instagram users post almost 55 million pictures a day. Snapchat said its users are sharing 350 million pictures a day which is almost exactly the same as Facebook. In brief, Snapchat has the potential ability to beat Facebook in the field of photos. At the same time, if Facebook bought Snapchat, Facebook can control all the market and eliminate an enemy easily.

Is it a good idea to refuse the offer from Facebook? It is not necessarily bad. According to the data published by Analytics company Onavo: the owners of Instagram is increasing by 2.5% a month, and that of Snapchat is increasing by 4% a month. Snapchat may have the chance to beat Facebook at last in the field of photo. But it takes risks.

Business is a gambling game. I think if we want to make profits, we have to take risks. If the directors of Snapchat think it is a good idea to take risks, just take it.

(source:http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2416808/Artificial-egg-PLANTS-backed-Bill-Gates-set-revolutionize-cooking-goes-sale-Whole-Foods.html)

Josh Tetrick, the founder of Hampton Creek, announced his company had created the artificial eggs. The raw materials of this kind of eggs come from plants, and Hampton Creek Foods’ website claimed its product was healthier and 19 percent cheaper than normal eggs. What’s more, if its product is put into cakes or cookies, they taste much better.

The market of the artificial eggs

In my opinion, if the artificial eggs were really healthier or at least as healthy as the normal eggs, although it may take some time, artificial eggs will take place of the normal eggs in the industry of  a variety of baked goods. Because all the producers cannot refuse the aggressively  decreasing cost. Moreover, as is said in the article, the company has taken animals out of the equation which means Hampton Creek can produce eggs as quickly as producing cars, and all the process of the production will never be limited by climate or seasons.

However, we should not be too optimistic about the market of artificial eggs. At least, the artificial eggs are not real eggs, and a lot of people may refuse to eat them, just like genetically modified food. Although people do not have any evidence that genetically modified food is unhealthy, a lot of people still do not like it.

Source:Michael Porter: Why business can be good at solving social problems

Mr. Michael Porter mainly talked about why business could solve social problems and how business solved social problems. He gave several interesting ideas.

To start with, business is the best way to tackle the social problems. As is shown in the graph, resources controlled by corporations account for more than 82 percent. The corporations are the most powerful force in the world, and if they want to take more responsibilities, they can do better than anyone else.

Moreover, Mr. Michael Porter gave several strong examples for how business solves the problems. To be specific, a Brazilian company found a way to produce more paper without cutting down any trees.

However, I am not totally agree with his idea that company can make more profits when it is trying to take more social responsibilities. Admittedly, the Brazilian company mentioned above actually is making more money, but I still doubt Mr. Michael Porter’s ideas. In some situations, corporations just cannot do both at the same time. For instance, pollution. If companies do not cope with pollution, they can save much money. If not, they harm the  public interests.

So who should take the responsibility to solve social problems? In my opinion, business is the tool like guns, but government is the hunter. Also take pollution as an example, government can just make the behavior of polluting environment illegal.

(Source:http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/other/display/20131030235010_Michael_Dell_and_Silver_Lake_Complete_Privatization_of_Dell.html)

Why are the companies like Twitter eager to be listed but Dell just did the opposite thing? In my opinion, it is because that there will be a great change in Dell.

To start with, why do the CEO want to privatize this company? The direct answer is that the stock price was so low that CEO wanted to buy it and it was high enough for the share holder to sell the shares, but what is the real reason for the CEO to do it? Or we can change this question to another one: what can Dell get from privatization. I think it is the stability and flexibility for a change. The CEO wanted to make sure that any decisions he would make in the future would not affect the whole asset.

Here comes to another problem: why does Dell need a change? First of all, the revenue of Dell has been keeping declining recently. What’s more, it is because of the big picture. Here is a table about the PC market of Europe.

According to the table, the whole PC market has been declining. At the same time, Dell is focusing on PC. This corporation has been suffering a lot from this declining.

In conclusion, the desperate demand to change forced the progress of the privatization.

(The source: http://www.tealeafnation.com/2013/10/chinas-silly-war-on-starbucks-lattes/)

Background Information:

There are many worse things in the world than an overpriced latte, but China Central Television (CCTV), a state-owned media behemoth ran an Oct. 20 segment accusing the Seattle-based company of overcharging Chinese consumers.

Influence of this Incident: Nothing

The graph shown below is the stock of Starbucks.

One day after the accusing, on October 21st, the stock of Starbucks increased to ＄79.46.

The reason why Starbucks can get through this crisis so easily.

To start with, CCTV grossly underestimated Chinese people’s ability to distinguish real injustice from the manufactured variety. Compared with house, gasoline and healthcare insurance, coffee is not that particularly important. What CCTV really wanted to do is to let the public focus on coffee instead of the problems which are more urgent.

Moreover, the reasonable explanations made by CEO of Starbucks helped a lot. The CEO of Starbucks paid enough attention to this incident, and he made that explanation just one day later. He persuaded the consumers to accept the price by rational analysis, although the price is actually really high.

Finally, I think it is because of its brand. As a world-wide famous brand, it cannot be affected by any medias easily even it is a state-owned media behemoth.

The Success of League of Legends

(Source:http://venturebeat.com/2013/07/27/comparing-mobas-dota-2-vs-league-of-legends-vs-heroes-of-newerth/)According to the data published by Riot Games, compared its competitor IceFrog (4.8 million), the number of the whole active monthly users of League of Legends has reached 32 million.

        League of Legends is an online free-to-play game which is very similar to DOTA. But DOTA is created in 2005. LOL was released on October 27, 2009. How can LOL control the market so quickly? Why are LOL and Riot Games so successful?

        First of all, Riot Games spent a lot of time and money on advertisement. Source:(http://www.gamespot.com/news/league-of-legends-season-3-world-championships-to-be-held-at-staples-center-6411299)The corporation has already hold three lol tournaments in 2013, and the championship’s winning team can get 1 million dollar. Apart from this 1 million the world championship prize pool is expected to bring the total sum of League of Legends prize money for Season 3 to over $8 million globally which has definitely attracted a lot of people.

        Moreover, the decision on its consumer segment is very rational and very wise. This game is easy-to-play. Even pupils can learn to play this game very quickly. What’s more, the way this company makes money is very acceptable supported by micro-transactions. This game is free to play, and the users can decide whether they buy the products or not. The company does not force them to pay, which makes the relationship between the consumers and the company more close.

There are also many reasons. But the two reasons above are the most important.

source:http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/26/technology/personaltech/sonys-whole-new-idea-half-a-camera.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1&ref=business&

When people are going through the Facebook, they see many pictures taken by phones, but the quality of the picture is not so perfect. Meanwhile, when people are alone and want to take a picture of themselves, because of the length of their arms, they can only take pictures of their faces instead of bodies.

Sony has just invented a new product to solve these problems, which is half a camera. It  can be connected to a phone.

The values offered by this product are very obvious: functional and easy-to-carry. People can upload the photos through a phone and use that “half a camera” to get a much more perfect  photo. What’s more, people can put the lens somewhere they cannot stand and get a unique view.

The consumer segment is the group of amateur photographers, and many of them are females because they want to take a better picture of themselves.However, the expense of this product is so high that nobody will want to buy it.

In my opinion, this product will leads to another revolution of cameras just like the one decades ago. Although this product is very expensive, its function is just ideal!With the development of technology, the price of it will decrease and the combination of a phone and a camera will take the lead in the future.

What Sony should do now is to make more research on this product and try to sell them as soon as possible so that they can control the market of digital cameras before the other competitors notice this product.

Source:http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/24/business/global/high-speed-train-system-is-huge-success-for-china.html?pagewanted=2&hpw

With the development of speedy trains, they have been exerting a more and more considerable on other business industries.

To start with, the fast trains have a significant effect on airline companies. Although a deadly accident happened , compared with airplanes, trains are still a better choice for Chinese because of the traditional idea that trains are safer than planes. As a result, the airline companies in china suffered a lot from the advancement of trains. For example, it takes passengers only 3 hours from Nanjing to Beijing by train. Nobody would like to spend much more money to take a plane.

However, this trend also contributes to creating business opportunities. For example, as is mentioned in the website, businessmen have more opportunities than before. They can show up in Guang Zhou in the morning and come back to Beijing at night to get more orders. What’s more, many prosperous cities are coming into being because of the traffic which may be able to send various resources and labors everywhere in China.

In my opinion, if I worked in an investment bank, I would focus on houses or apartments the new railway stations because the price of them has a great possibility to go up. At the same time, people can open our own restaurants or stores nearby. After several years, people can just sell them, which also makes a lot of money.

source:http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2013/09/11/new-york-regulator-sees-abuse-increasing-under-new-insurance-rules/?hpw&_r=0

Background:Several big life insurers are going to have to set aside a total of at least $4 billion because New York regulators believe they have been manipulating new rules meant to make sure they have adequate reserves to pay out claims. And A sample of 16 insurers in the test were expected to increase their reserves by $10 billion, he said, but instead only $668 million was added.

Since the capitalists on Wall Street created economic crisis in 2008, I have already been familiar with their evil behavior. But after I read “The Social Responsibiliy of Business is to Increase Profits“. I began to wonder what is the real business ethics.

If I were a customer of these insurance companies, I would definitely think the measures these insurance companies are taking are jeopardize my interests, which should be considered immoral.

However, if I were a Chief Executive Officer of an insurer, I would absolutely do the same thing because it is my responsibility to make money for stockholders and shareholders. What’s more, I do not break the law, so according to the theory, which is mentioned in the article of “The Social Responsibiliy of Business is to Increase Profits“, what I am doing is moral.

As a result, business ethics is against the social ethics. If what I have just wrote was correct, government should just forbid business. That’s my confusion, and I hope I can figure it out in class.