Odd Lots

In June, grocery giant Aldi opened a store just off of Times Square in Manhattan. It's the company's first location in Midtown and, according to their US Chief Commercial Officer Scott Patton, Aldi has to orchestrate a "logistical symphony" to get groceries into the middle of one of the busiest places in America. For instance, they use shorter trucks to navigate the tight corners of New York City streets. On this episode, we speak with Patton about what it took to open this specific Aldi and why they chose a busy tourist location like Times Square. He also explains how the company — famous for its low prices — is able to sell even wagyu ground beef at a consumer-friendly price point, how the mostly private-label grocer thinks through which name brands to incorporate into their stock, Aldi's cult-favorite "Aisle of Shame," a short history of barcode innovation, and how GLP-1s are changing consumer habits.
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There's this weird contradiction that hovers almost all conversations regarding the Chinese economy. On the one hand, the growth and rising material prosperity is undeniable. And of course, Chinese industrial giants are at the frontier in all kinds of things, like batteries. On the other hand, you always hear about a soft domestic market, and a general state of unease among workers who fear that precarity is around the corner. So how is this contradiction explained? And how does it affect day-to-day life? On this episode, we bring back one of our regular guests Dan Wang, who recently returned from a long trip to Shanghai. We discuss his observations, the general ennui he saw, the signs of domestic weakness, and the way in which phone culture is reshaping Chinese society.

Read more: It’s Too Soon to Breathe Easy on China’s Economy

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In the China tech space, Baidu is now a full-stack player in the AI industry. The company makes its own chips, has its own AI models (Ernie), its own cloud system, and it's integrating AI into its self-driving car business, Apollo Go. But before all this, Baidu was known for being China's leader in search. Things, obviously, have changed a lot since the company was founded in the late 1990s. In today's episode, we speak with Baidu CFO Henry He about the company's AI ambitions. He talks to us about maximizing token spend, how Chinese tech firms are thinking about safety and alignment, the global robotaxi competition, and how the core search business fits into the company now.
Read more:Chinese AI Stocks Rally on Demand Optimism and Policy SupportUS Seeks AI Partnership With EU on Regulation, Supply Chains
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We know that companies around the world are investing heavily in AI. So intense is the race to win the AI battle, that it feels like there's almost no upward limit on how much you could spend on it. So how are CFOs thinking about capex in the AI age? In this episode we speak with Winston Cheng, CFO of Chinese-founded multinational tech firm Lenovo. Lenovo is known for its personal computers, especially its Thinkpad line of laptops, but they are making a push to move beyond its role as one of the leaders in personal computing, integrating AI agents into their devices and investing in building out an “AI Cloud” infrastructure alongside Nvidia. We talk to Cheng about how Lenovo's allocating capital during one of the biggest capex booms in history. We also discuss involution and market competition in China, and how Lenovo's been adapting its supply chain to tariffs.
Read more:
AI Sales Start to Justify Data-Center Spending Boom, Report Says
Anthropic Accuses Alibaba of ‘Illicitly’ Accessing AI Models
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The Strait of Hormuz has (mostly) re-opened! Crude prices are still up since the start of the war with Iran, but popular predictions earlier this year of $200-a-barrel Brent didn’t pan out. Why is that? We last talked to Rory Johnston, the founder of the Commodity Context newsletter, at the start of the conflict. And in that conversation he said that the Strait’s closure would lead to $200 oil if it persisted for any length of time. Today, he returns to tell us what he’s learned about the oil market since then. He explains the various factors that kept a lid on prices, including some re-routing, Trump jawboning, and (crucially) surprise import reductions from China.
Previous: Rory Johnston on How Oil Could Surge to Over $200 a Barrel
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