Latest news with #MattLevine
Bloomberg
13-05-2025
- Business
- Bloomberg
The War on Drugs Meets the War on High Drug Prices
This is Bloomberg Opinion Today, the unilateral disarmament of Bloomberg Opinion's opinions. Sign up here. They say all publicity is good publicity, but with UnitedHealth, that's not necessarily the case. It has been five months since the company's top insurance executive was shot and killed on a Manhattan sidewalk, for example, but plenty of people — including our very own Matt Levine — are still talking about it. Meanwhile, on Tuesday, UnitedHealth CEO Andrew Witty suddenly stepped down 'for personal reasons,' prompting some depraved potshots on social media. None of this is good for UnitedHealth's bottom line. In addition abruptly replacing its CEO, the Minnesota-based company ditched its 2025 financial outlook, citing (irony alert) 'higher-than-expected medical costs.'
Forbes
22-03-2025
- Business
- Forbes
$1 Million Weather Analysts: Business And The Data Analysis Revolution
Meteorological weather map. Weather modeling experts are being offered up to one million dollars a year in salary, Bloomberg reports. Hedge funds and commodity traders have led the charge to lure top weather quants to work. The broader implications of the data analysis trend apply across a wide range of disciplines. Data analysis will continue to grow in importance across virtually all businesses. And if one company in a field is using good data analysis, the others must match that company or lose ground. Good data analysis seems to be expensive, it is being used because it has gotten cheaper. More data are available in digital format, so old-fashioned keypunching is not needed. Computers that can handle large batches of data are trivially cheap. The software has improved tremendously, relieving the analyst of most tedious programming. The result is companies that are more dialed in to demand for their products, more able to source the materials they need at the right time and in the right volume, and better able to adjust to changing conditions. Matt Levine commented on the Bloomberg report, 'I half-seriously argued recently that the attraction of quantitative finance might have 'created conditions in which it is incredibly lucrative to get very good at statistical inference,' and thus paved the way for modern artificial intelligence models.' He wondered if riches in finance help to incentivize young people studying fields such as physics or meteorology to get good at data analysis. Or maybe it's a waste of talent for such bright people to work on commodity trading. This approach to the connection between weather and commodity prices contrasts sharply with the old way, demonstrated by a hilarious anecdote from The Money Game by 'Adam Smith' (a pseudonym for George Goodman), published in 1967. The narrator bought five cocoa futures contracts on advice from his friend The Great Winfield. When the price dropped, the narrator and the friend starting calling everyone who might know what was going on at Ghana's cocoa plantations. Old contacts and friends of friends were questioned about the weather. 'Tell me sir, is it raining in your country now?' 'It always rains in August.' Casual long-distance calls and telegrams were not working. 'The Great Winfield decided we must send our man to West Africa to find out if it was raining and whether the Dreaded Black Pod Disease was spreading and whether indeed there was any cocoa crop at all.' They dispatched a down-on-his-luck Brooklyn commodities trader who had never been to Africa before, who reported what he heard from other people staying at his hotel, and then got lost in the jungle. Today weather reports come from both on-the-ground meteorology stations and satellite reconnaissance. More data have led to better forecasts, including for local areas, as described by Chelsea Freas in an episode of the SailFaster podcast. (The episode is aimed at sailboat racers, but the weather forecasting discussion has broad applicability.) These stories provide a great perspective: A forecast is not just a forecast; it's a tool to make better decisions about a particular issue in a particular location. 'Our man in Africa' didn't really know what he was doing, but today's data analysts have their game down. Business leaders should spend some time wondering what they could do better if only some forecast were more accurate. After identifying a few key projections that could help the business, the data analysis effort begins by looking for analysts. Some may be available at the company already, or they can be hired or contracted for. Many people at the top of an organization don't know all the information available both in their own computers and through publicly-available databases. And most certainly don't know the techniques for of analyzing the data to create useful forecasts. But the top dogs don't need to know the raw data or how to analyze it; just how to find some people who can. And a million dollars for a top analyst may be cheap relative to the value of the person's work.
Yahoo
10-03-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Bottled water company reveals major upgrade to its product packaging: 'Central to our mission'
In an effort to reduce plastic waste, Chlorophyll Water will provide its products in more sustainable packaging, including a one-liter bottle made from 100% recycled plastic and a 16-ounce aluminum can, as reported by Clean the Sky. The company announced that the packaging will debut at Natural Products Expo West in Anaheim, California, from March 5-7. Chlorophyll Water produces bottled water enhanced with chlorophyll, a compound that boasts "antioxidant, detoxifying, oxygenating, and anti-inflammatory properties," according to its website. The company's new packaging furthers its commitment to both human and environmental health. It received the first Clean Label Project Certification –– which tests products for contaminants like heavy metals, pesticides, and plasticizers –– for bottled water in the United States. When you think about a product's packaging, which of these factors is more important to you? The way it looks The information it provides The waste it produces I don't think about packaging at all Click your choice to see results and speak your mind. "We launched with landfill-biodegradable bottles and transitioned to 100% recycled plastic for our 16.9 ounce bottles. With our new one liter bottles made from 100% recycled plastic and 16 ounce aluminum cans, we're reducing dependence on virgin plastic," said Chlorophyll Water founder Matt Levine. About 98% of single-use plastics –– like those used for bottled water –– are virgin plastics. Virgin plastics are made from dirty energy sources, and their production produces toxic gases. These toxic gases contribute to a changing climate, creating negative consequences for people and the planet, such as rising temperatures and more extreme weather events. Single-use plastics made from virgin plastics also produce plastic waste, and a 2024 study found about 60 companies are responsible for over 50% of global plastic waste. Plastic waste, like the toxic gases produced by its manufacturing, has health consequences. Microplastics pollute the environment and can enter the human body, yet the extent of their impact remains unknown. With its new packaging, Chlorophyll Water is joining other companies like the makers of Crystal Geyser bottled water, Kraft, and others in changing the trend of corporate plastic waste and improving human and environmental health. The new packaging will reduce dependence on virgin plastics and dirty energy by using recycled plastics and aluminum instead. "Sustainability is central to our mission," said Levine. Join our free newsletter for good news and useful tips, and don't miss this cool list of easy ways to help yourself while helping the planet.
Bloomberg
31-01-2025
- Business
- Bloomberg
Lots More With Matt Levine on MicroStrategy's Infinite Money Machine
Listen to Odd Lots on Apple Podcasts Listen to Odd Lots on Spotify Subscribe to the newsletter Everyone knows by now that MicroStrategy looks a lot like a giant Bitcoin ETF. Its founder, Michael Saylor, is a huge supporter of the cryptocurrency and his company has been snapping up billions of dollars worth of the coins. The strategy has so far proved successful. In fact, MicroStrategy is trading at a market cap that's worth more than the value of its entire Bitcoin portfolio. How does this happen? And how long can it keep going? In this episode, we speak with Bloomberg Opinion's Matt Levine. We talk to him about how MicroStrategy has created a sort of "perpetual motion machine" of investment and how the strategy is starting to expand to other companies, too.
Bloomberg
27-01-2025
- Business
- Bloomberg
DeepSeek Bursts Nvidia's Bubble
This is Bloomberg Opinion Today, an open-source reasoning model built by Bloomberg Opinion's opinions. Sign up here. Seven months ago, Matt Levine said 'people who got good at building computers that can pick stocks are pivoting to processing natural language.' The pivot is now complete, and Nvidia is $589 billion lighter today because of it:
