From snacks to riches

Vending machines might seem an unlikely candidate for trending investment in the 2020s, but the idea has captured the imagination of Americans dreaming of easier money. Some pursue chips and soda as a side hustle because their regular paychecks aren’t enough for them to get by. Others bet on vending machines as a ticket to upward mobility, to quitting their jobs and becoming their own boss. There is a fair amount of competition, too. America has three million vending machines, an $18.2 billion industry, with the average machine generating about $525 in monthly revenue, according to the National Automatic Merchandising Association. Social media has fueled the notion of finding financial freedom in vending machines. Between 2019 and 2023, the number of posts or comments mentioning passive income and vending machines more than tripled on X and increased by a factor of six on Instagram, according to Sprinklr, a social-media management platform. Google search interest in passive income increased by some 75pc during that same period.

(Adapted from “Chasing Passive Income, Americans Turn to Vending Machines,” by Joe Pinsker, published on March 9, 2024, by the Wall Street Journal)

Marketplace scams

Users of Facebook Marketplace in the US say the once-straightforward process of buying and selling there has become anything but. Buyers say they’ve encountered counterfeit listings, payment cons or products that don’t match what was promised. When sellers are scammed, it’s often by a “buyer” showing fake payment confirmation, or they’re inundated by messages that ask, “Is this still available?” The Better Business Bureau’s Scam Tracker database is filled with hundreds of reports from Facebook Marketplace users in the US who allege they fell prey to fraud on the platform. While the Marketplace serves a purpose for people selling their belongings — and many great deals can regularly be found — users, financial institutions and online shopping experts say the quality of the experience has diminished since it launched in 2016. Facebook parent Meta Platforms says it invests in tools to detect fraudulent activity, and provides measures people can take to protect themselves from scams.

(Adapted from “Banks And Users Warn of Scammers On Facebook Marketplace,” by Dalvin Brown, published on March 11, 2024, by the Wall Street Journal)

The gulf between genders

The growing gulf between young men and women in developed countries is striking. Polling data from 20 such countries shows that, whereas two decades ago, there was little difference between the share of men and women aged 18­-29 who described themselves as liberal rather than conservative, the gap has grown to 25 percentage points. Young men also seem more anti-feminist than older men, bucking the trend for each generation to be more liberal than its predecessor. Polls from 27 European countries found that men under 30 were more likely than those over 65 to agree that “advancing women’s and girls’ rights has gone too far because it threatens men’s and boys’ opportunities”. Similar results can be found in Britain, South Korea and China. Young women were likely to believe the opposite, partly because young women are soaring ahead of their male peers academically.

(Adapted from “Making Sense Of The Gulf Between Young Men And Women,” by The Economist, published on March 14, 2024)

Learning from VCs

Venture investors — backers of early-stage, high-growth companies — have to think differently to survive and succeed. The companies they invest in take longer to mature than the typical corporate project, and they are high risk to be sure, with up to four of every five flaming out and only 5pc becoming runaway successes. Needless to say, successful VC investors are not people who are desperate to minimise their loss ratio. Despite the high failure rate, their returns are the envy of the financial world. Most corporations, however, do not tolerate much risk. As we often tell corporate leaders, if at least 30pc of your portfolio companies don’t fail, you’re likely investing too conservatively. A memorable assertion is that errors of omission are much more painful in the VC world than are errors of commission.

(Adapted from “Steer Clear of Corporate Venture Capital Pitfalls,” by Ilya A. Strebulaev and Amanda Wang, published by MIT Soan School of Management)

Published in Dawn, The Business and Finance Weekly, March 25th, 2024