2024 – Week 52

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Argentina’s miracle turnaround

I admittedly do not know much about Argentina. Beyond Messi and Patagonia the only other thing I knew about them was their persistent hyper inflation and a chronic debt crisis. But thanks to Lex Friedman’s recent interview of President Javier Milei, I learned how his government played just as brilliantly as their superstar footballer. It was inspiring to hear the president talk about how an iron fisted execution of fiscal discipline and steely political resolve to eliminate waste and corruption from the government machinery can yield seemingly miraculous results in a matter of months.

Digital wallets – beyond payments

I am always intrigued by how consumers sometimes find completely unintended uses of a product that then forces the product makers to pivot or refocus their roadmap. It gets even more challenging when users in different markets prefer to use the same product for different use cases in different markets. Digital wallets are a great example where users in different parts of the world use the tool in different ways. While in-store payments dominate Apple Pay usage in France, Brazilians mainly use government issued wallets for storing digital credentials, but for the some purpose people in UK use either Apple, Google or Samsung wallets.

This clearly explains why Walter providers have to focus on Digital ID management and integration with government issued digital credentials just as much as payments.

Read more here.

Why drop the ball on the new year

Interesting origin of the popular tradition of ball Drop in NYC’s Times Square.

Read the full article here.

Everything else

• The Authentic Leaderships of Jimmy Carter and Manmohan Singh
• Compilation of best of 2024 excerpts from The Knowledge Project podcast

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That’s it folks! See you next time.