The Weekend Edition
From why Crédit Suisse thinks you can make a buck on fat, to CSR propaganda that really works, puppies on demand, and why every aspect of your business is about to change

A QUICK NOTE TO NEW SUBSCRIBERS

Enterprise publishes English and Arabic editions Sunday-Thursday before 7am, with a focus on the business, economic and politics news that will move markets that day. But for the past six weekends, we’ve been experimenting with a weekend edition that is light on news and heavy on stories to read, videos to watch, and podcasts to which you may want to listen on Friday and Saturday (that being the weekend for the vast majority of our readers). The Weekend Edition comes out each Friday at 9:00am CLT. We’re in beta and in English only right now.

This weekend, as we occasionally do, we include a quick roundup on yesterday’s news — because news sometimes has a way of worming its way into our consciousness, even on otherwise glorious fall Fridays.

As always, feedback is very welcome at editorial@enterprisemea.com. We’ll be back on Sunday at around 6:15am with our usual roundup.

Until then: Enjoy the weekend.

WHAT HAPPENED YESTERDAY?

Two major questions are gripping the United States at the moment: Just who, exactly, built the Pyramids, and how — not if — did ISIS down Flight KGL 9268 over the Sinai?

In the past 24 hours, US President Barack Obama, Senator John McCain and House Homeland Security Committee chair Michael McCaul have all thrown their weight behind the possibility that North Sinai Daesh-affiliate Wilayat Sina managed to get a bomb onboard the downed Russian charter plane — despite a lack of conclusive evidence. Upon what are American and European politicians basing their statements and decisions? “Chatter” on online forums by jihadis after the crash, according to CNN. From the same CNN article in question: “The counterterrorism official warned that sometimes the chatter is empty boasting to impress others or even jihadi attempts to throw off intelligence agencies with misinformation because they suspect their discussions are being monitored… And one reason some U.S. counterterrorism officials remain very cautious is that a lot of the chatter comes from open sources, like online forums, social media and other Internet resources.” (Read, note because that it is CNN, there is an irritating stream of autoplay videos embedded)

The UK’s Foreign & Commonwealth Office (FCO) updated its travel advice on Thursday, allowing some 20,000 U.K. nationals stranded in Sharm El Sheikh to begin returning home today. The Brits had earlier banned flights into and out of Sinai, and are still advising against all but essential travel by air to Sharm. British travelers returning home will only be allowed carry-on luggage, with the checked-in luggage to be transported separately. The decision came after the UK sent a team to audit security at Sharm El Sheikh’s airport, and not, as some journalists and Egypt observers were incorrectly stating, to take part in the investigation. According to an emailed statement from the Egyptian Civil Aviation Authority that we noted on Thursday, “Egypt is leading the investigation with Accredited Representatives from Russia (State of Operator), Ireland (State of Registry), France (State of Design) and Germany (State of Manufacturer).”

Dmitry Peskov, Vladimir Putin’s spokesperson said “any theories about what caused a Russian plane to crash in the Sinai Peninsula killing 224 people are speculation and that only the official investigation can determine what happened” Russia’s foreign ministry even complained about Britain’s failure to hand it information about the plane crash. “If they have information and they are not presenting it that is shocking,” Maria Zakharova, a foreign ministry spokesperson, told reporters.

Separately, KLM Royal Dutch Airlines announced on Thursday that it was preventing its passengers on Flight KL554 departing from Cairo to Amsterdam from taking anything with other than carry-on luggage, but said there were no restrictions on flying to and from Cairo airport.

President Abdel Fattah El Sisi met with British Prime Minister David Cameron at 10 Downing Street on Thursday, where they held a joint press conference. (Watch, running time: 10:02)

Only two questions were asked at the end of the conference, and it is implied by their tone that the first was put forth by a British journalist and the second by an Egyptian. The first question, which was directed to El Sisi: “You have reason today to be unhappy with the British response. Firstly, you were not informed of the decision to suspend flights, and secondly the UK now appears to be suggesting that Egypt cannot run a secure airport in Sharm el-Sheikh.” El Sisi responded by saying that “Ten months ago we were asked by our British friends to send teams to Sharm el-Sheikh airport, to make sure that all the security procedures there are well enough, and provide the adequate safety and security for the passengers… Not necessarily on one airport but with all the airports.” The full transcript of the press conference is available here.

The Egyptian government is attempting to spur tourism in light of the crash’s expected negative effect by opening two tombs in Luxor’s Valley of the Kings for the first time ever to the public. Meanwhile, British Egyptologist Nicholas Reeves began his previously scheduled non-invasive scans of King Tutankhamun’s tomb on Thursday, with work expected to be completed today, in search of a hidden chamber he believes may contain the tomb of Queen Nefertiti.

Republican frontrunner Ben Carson on the Pyramids: It would be unfair to judge leading Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson for something stupid he said about the Pyramids in 1998. Except that when asked about it last Wednesday by US news network CBS, Carson said “It’s still my belief, yes.”

Carson’s unhinged behavior didn’t end there — he also released a rap radio ad specifically targeting black voters. Listen to it here on Soundcloud.

Carson has also come under fire by former Republican frontrunner Donald Trump for Carson’s alleged violent youth, which he detailed in his autobiography, claiming he almost hit his mother in the head with a hammer and stabbed a friend in an argument over which radio station to listen. All of this, of course, before Carson eventually found Jesus. “The Carson story is either a total fabrication or, if true, even worse-trying to hit mother over the head with a hammer or stabbing friend” Trump tweeted, as reported by Politico.

Trump, meanwhile, is set to host Saturday Night Live tomorrow, despite Latino groups calling on producer Lorne Michaels to cancel Trump’s appearance over his comments that Mexican immigrants are criminals and rapists, the New York Times reports.

SPEED ROUND, THE WEEKEND EDITION

Cancel whatever you have planned for today: Uber is delivering puppies to your doorstep: Uber is bringing to Cairo an on-demand puppy playdate service today. The service costs EGP 100 for 15 minutes of playtime and all the proceeds will go to the Egyptian Society for Mercy to Animals (ESMA). Also, all puppies will be up for adoption. To get the service:

• Open your Uber app between 2pm and 6pm on Friday, November 6;
• Request the “UberPUPPIES” option in your app;
• Once the puppy arrives, you and your friends will enjoy 15 minutes of puppy cuteness. Pro-Tip: Make sure to have an enclosed space ready for puppy play time.

Speaking of Uber: The cab-hailing app is investing USD 250 mn over several years in the MENA region: “The purpose of the investment will primarily be in three areas — to increase the number of drivers who use the Uber platform, expand access to the Uber platform to new cities and launch innovative new products that can shift the transportation landscape across the cities in which we operate,” Jambu Palaniappan, Uber’s regional general manager, told Gulf News. The company is also going to launch UberPOOL, a service that “enables riders going in the same direction to share the trip and help cut the cost of a ride and reduce congestion overtime.” Egypt remains one of Uber’s high-growth markets as Cairo is the fastest-growing city for the company in Europe, Middle East, and Africa. Palaniappan said that 40% of Uber’s drivers in Cairo were unemployed before signing up for the service. What’s next for Uber in the MENA region? The company still sees “plenty of opportunities” in Egypt and Saudi Arabia but is now planning roll out in Sharjah as well as expand to Oman and Pakistan.

The Economist’s first-ever college rankings are unusual — and cover only colleges in the U.S. They’re “based on a simple, if debatable, premise: the economic value of a university is equal to the gap between how much money its students subsequently earn, and how much they might have made had they studied elsewhere.” Topping the list: Washington and Lee University and Babson College. Although Harvard ranked only fourth, the Crimson could not help but crow that it came in “several hundred places ahead of peer institutions.” In other words, Princeton came in 770th, while Yale was ranked number 1,270.

“Why every aspect of your business is about to change”. Fortune’s Geoff Colvin has lately come across as a decade past his prime, but every now and then, he pumps out a must-read. If you’ve got your hand on your company’s tiller — whether you’re setting strategy for an EGX mainstay or a startup that just landed its first customer — you’re going to want to give some thought to his latest piece for the magazine. From unbundling to the reduction of friction and the fact of human talent being every corporation’s fundamental asset, Colvin brings up issues every corporate leader needs to think over with a cup of coffee (or a dram of Lagavulin). Don’t know what unbundling is? Get yourself a refill, then go read “How to Succeed in Business by Bundling – and Unbundling” in the Harvard Business Review.

Okay, we’re not very happy with Business Insider after their completely vapid take-down of Egypt earlier this week, but still, if you’re into mechanical devices with four wheels and an internal combustion engine: Check out James Bond’s greatest cars.

Goldman Sachs has dumped a pile of short videos from its Builders + Innovators Summit 2015 onto its website. Our favourite: Quick clips of entrepreneurs speaking about “my best mistake.” Scroll through the page for galleries of other clips from both the 2014 and 2015 conferences.

If there’s one thing cooler than a mad scientist, it’s a billionaire entrepreneur who thinks it would be awesome to spend his fortune funding the work of a small army of mad scientists. That man is Manoj Bhargava, the founder of the (horribly baladi) energy drink 5 Hour Energy, who has signed onto Bill Gates’ giving pledge and agreed to give away 90% of his fortune before he dies. Among the ways he plans on making himself penniless on his deathbed: The USD 100 mn private equity fund Stage 2 Innovations, which is dedicated to “advances in water and energy technology.” Notes the Wall Street Journal: “Among the designs that Stage 2 hopes to bring to market are a desalination machine that can fit inside a cargo ship container and process a thousand gallons of water per hour, and a hybrid bicycle with an output capable of powering a house for a day. The Peter Berg–produced documentary Billions in Change, released in October, follows Bhargava’s transition from beverage tycoon to globally minded disrupter and is bringing a new level of attention to a man who — despite a fortune he estimates at USD 4 bn — has so far remained behind the curtains.” The three-minute trailer for Billions in Change is here, and you can catch the full 43-minute doc here without charge. It’s without a doubt the best (and most inspiring) pieces of ‘CSR propaganda’ we’ve ever watched.

Need to remind yourself that you can be an investment banker and still have a soul? Tired of meaningless CSR initiatives? Try something like this: Citi investment bankers have helped Detroit reclaim the night. Literally. 40 percent of streetlights in the bankrupt city didn’t work. From Citi’s propaganda department: “The Public Lighting Authority of Detroit devised a plan to re-illuminate the city. But finding a bank to finance the project during Detroit’s bankruptcy was challenging. Citi stepped up and committed USD 60 mn of its own capital, which encouraged other early investors, and then helped issue bonds to raise the remaining funds — USD 185 mn — to install thousands of LED streetlights, improving quality of life for Detroit residents.” (Watch. Run time: 60 seconds)

Speaking of corporate propaganda: Do you know why you have so few followers for your corporate Twitter / Instagram / whatever account? It’s probably because it stinks. Most likely because someone in your organization is afraid to cut loose, so you don’t post — and what you do post is boring. Don’t take our word for it: Go ask Guy Kawasaki. But you’re smart. You can fix that in three easy steps: Create an engaged community. Maintain a decent editorial standard. And don’t annoy anyone. Read more on: 1,000 engaged Instagram followers in 14 days (and what I learnt getting there).

A one-year-old child named Layla may have just become the first person in human history to have her life saved by gene editing. If you have even a passing interest in molecular biology, cancer or the future of medicine, this story in the New Scientist is for you.

Best tech tip we’ve heard this week: Netflix doesn’t care about your credit card’s address. Or: How to get U.S. Netflix anywhere (even though the U.S. ‘edition’ doesn’t have Suits, and other territories do). Want to watch U.S. Netflix? Laboring under the impression that because your credit card address is in France / the U.K. / Ireland / Canada / whatever, you’re stuck with that particular Netflix site? It doesn’t have to be so. Just change your VPN location to anywhere in the US of A and start binge watching with a pile of freedom fries. (And, yes, we know Netflix is coming to MENA. It might even do well with Egyptian films. But with regional licensing agreements being what they are, we’re not holding our breath for it to include the best of Hollywood and global cinema.)

Forbes’ Elizabeth MacBride profiled Abraaj Group and how it “invented private equity in the Middle East” (ah, the hyperbole of our colleagues in media…). Having managed to report an annual return of 17% since the Group’s inception, CEO Arif Naqvi says hates it when “Westerners” say Abraaj operates in emerging or frontier markets. He “considers the notion of risky emerging markets a myth — part of what he calls ‘universally practiced hypocrisies.’” Naqvi’s recipe for success: “While you might think investing in places like Egypt or Nigeria or Vietnam means winning over the corrupt players or finding ways to move in lockstep with whatever government is in power, Abraaj instead relies on a boots-on-the-ground network of small local offices to help it navigate around the corruption.” MacBride points out Abraaj’s “moral-cum-pragmatic” investment approach in Egypt and notes that in just two exits Abraaj is estimated to have doubled its partners’ money. Naqvi targets young, growing markets: “In your world, the average age is 40. In the markets where we invest, it’s 26. What happens when you’re 26? You want to spend it like crazy.”

Geeks of a certain age, unite: Was your first computer a Sinclair ZX-81 (or, for those of us across the pond, a Timex Sinclair of the same alphanumeric designation)? Does the memory of a photo of a TRS-80 or a VIC-20 put a smile on your face? What about an Apple II or IIe? Or are you just a youngster into everything 1980s, what with Back to the Future making a comeback? The only thing better than spending 30 minutes browsing the wickedly retro OldComputers.Net this morning would be to hit up Ebay’s United States or United Kingdom Vintage Computing channels and figure out what it would cost to become a collector of the gear your dreamed about as a kid.

Crédit Suisse thinks sugar’s going to kill you — and that you could make a killing by investing in fat. The bulge bracket bank is joining the Paleo and primal eating crowds in hopping on “sugar = white death” bandwagon, with a 40+ page research paper picking up on what some scientists have been saying for more than a decade now: Because of its effect on the body, sugar has been a “major contributor [to the global obesity epidemic] beyond the simple amount of calories it added to our diet.” And while fat has been vilified, the bank notes, a review of 400 scientific papers suggests that “eating cholesterol, for instance, has basically no impact on the level of cholesterol in the blood or on potential heart diseases, and the link between saturated fat intake and cardiovascular risk has not been proved.” Want to make a buck on the trend faster than you can say “fat blockers and fake fats cause [redacted] leakage”? Crédit Suisse has your back, noting that the trend “offers powerful investment ideas.” Read “Sugar: Consumption at crossroads” (40+ pp pdf) and “Fat: The new health paradigm” (80+ pp pdf) from Crédit Suisse.

Want to dig deeper into why we get fat? The best book on the subject is Gary Taubes’ work of the same title, written with wit and a deep knowledge of both the science and history of the subject. Hint: It has relatively little to do with either caloric deficits or will power. Check out “Why We Get Fat” on Amazon, learn more about Taubes on Twitter or his website, or read his investigation of “Is Sugar Toxic” for the New York Times. Also worth reading on the subject? Most anything by pediatrician and Fat Chance author Robert Lustig. Start with “Sugar isn’t just empty, fattening calories – it’s making us sick”.

It may be on Al Jazeera’s website, but this is the one story on MENA startups that Andreessen Horowitz’s Marc Andreessen thinks you should read, per his Twitter feed (follow at your own risk — it’s a fire hose).

“An Egyptian social media alliance”: Al Arabiya published an English translation on Wednesday of Diana Moukalled’s article, which originally appeared in Arabic on Asharq Al-Awsat, detailing how Bassem Youssef and journalist and activist Wael Abbas used social media to encourage major companies to pull their advertising from Reham Saeed’s program. Speaking of social media: Burger King is apparently killing it on the social media marketing front (in Amreeka, at least), Bloomberg recently told us, while Apple is feeling pretty anti-social.

The participation rate of women in Egypt’s labour force is three times less than men’s, and their unemployment rate is more than double. “The Egyptian government is working on a new labor law to offer workers, especially women, more rights, and its provisions are being finalized,” Al Monitor says. According to one economics professor, the reason behind women’s lower participation in economic activities boils down to gender discrimination. There are a number of social pressures that hold women from participating in the workforce effectively and even when they overcome them, women end up earning less than their male peers. “There is a gender wage gap and attributed it to a lack of adequate measures designed to achieve equal working opportunities such as the provision of nurseries and safe transportation,” Mona Ezzat, the director of the Women and Work Program at the New Woman Foundation, says.

There may be a good reason why your hotspot isn’t working in your hotel room. The U.S. Federal Communication Commission (FCC) is looking into allegations that Hilton blocked Wi-Fi access at “at least one of its hotels” to force customers to sign up to its expensive in-house network. The FCC already fined the hotel chain USD 25K for obstructing an investigation into a complaint made in August 2014 alleging the Anaheim hotel for forcing the accuser to pay USD 500 for the hotel’s Wi-Fi. According to The Economist, the Marriott paid USD 600K to settle a complaint that it blocked customers modems. It then tried to lobby to have Communications Act amended to allow for this, but public outcry forced it to back down. It has us wondering: If they’re trying to get away with it in the United States, what about emerging markets?

Will skyscrapers one day be made of bamboo? It appears technically possible, though the inventor of ‘bamboo composite material’ notes that that “Eighty per cent of all structures worldwide are one or two stories. That is our market.” The material is made by mixing bamboo fibers with 10% organic resin, and the resulting product can be “pressed into any shape and then sawn or sanded like wood” — and used in place of rebar to reinforce concrete. The kicker: It weighs only a quarter of what a comparably sized piece of steel would weight, requires vastly less energy to produce, and also has applications in everything from the automotive industry to bicycle manufacturing. “The big advantage of a bamboo fibre is that it is 100 times cheaper than carbon fibre, but it has potentially the same strength.” Better still, constructing more buildings with bamboo could help save the earth: Bamboo is an exceptionally efficient carbon dioxide trap. Read more on Deezen or on the inventor’s website.

Dive into the national (and temporal) origin of colors with this infographic from Lapham’s Quarterly. Note the three oldest colors on the list originated in Egypt. Ask yourself what we’ve contributed lately. (And weep that the infographic is utterly unfriendly to mobiles and is best viewed on your iPad or laptop.)

WATCH THIS

Documentary of the Week: For all you history and energy-minded nerds out there, we’ve chosen this week The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money and Power. Based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning book by Daniel Yergin, this eight-episode (apologies in advance to your families) Homeric saga draws you into the complete history of oil until the nineties. From the rise of Rockefeller’s Standard Oil, to the emergence of OPEC and the Gulf War, it ultimately tells the story of how the entire world first became truly connected through the sticky black gold. Youtube has the entire series which you can view here.

READ THIS

What does it take to produce a successful show? Tina Fey answers the question in an article for The New Yorker where she lists some of the lessons she’s learned from Saturday Night Live producer Lorne Michaels and describes what it was like working at 30 Rockefeller Plaza. On top of the list: “Producing is about discouraging creativity… You would think that in your capacity as a producer your job would be to churn up creativity, but mostly your job is to police enthusiasm.” Michaels’ lessons also include “the show doesn’t go on because it’s ready; it goes on because it’s eleven-thirty,” “don’t hire anyone you wouldn’t want to run into in the hallway at three in the morning,” and, arguably most importantly, “never tell a crazy person he’s crazy… the most exhausting people occasionally turn out the best stuff… these crazy people are charming and brilliant and great fun to see at three in the morning.”

Don’t Let Big Data Bury Your Brand: Peter Horst and Robert Duboff give good advice in the Harvard Business Review on striking the right balance between the impact data analytics should have on marketing managers versus maintaining a coherent long-term brand strategy. “[Chief marketing officers] whose companies, like [American banking company] Capital One, are in regulated industries need also to ask, ‘Could I explain this to regulators, community leaders, and other stakeholders?’ Taking a follow-the-data approach could lead to marketing initiatives that generate strong ROI but unwittingly expose the company to allegations of inappropriate targeting, or unfair exclusion, or using data-driven correlations that in hindsight appear discriminatory.” (Read)

LISTEN TO THIS

Fairy tales were not originally for kids (Or: how to give your kids nightmares): In fact, they started off as dark tales with plenty of murder, cannibalism, and other mayhem geared towards adults, according to the Stuff You Should Know (SYSK) podcast. The Brothers Grimm began sanitising old folk tales a bit, and then came Walt Disney, who threw in all the rainbows and butterflies. SYSK’s Josh Clark and Chuck Bryant give the “dark” original stories of a number fairy well known fairy tales. Pinocchio? He originally killed Jiminy Cricket with a hammer before getting hanged and left to die himself. Little Red Riding Hood? Not only does the wolf eat the grandmother, it follows that up with having Little Red Riding Hood for dessert. Hansel and Gretel? Gretel gets hungry and ends up eating Hansel, her brother, alive, because why not? (Listening time 44:33)

Should big companies hedge against currency risk? Not necessarily. “It’s about the cashflows … It’s about managing risk in cashflows that could lead to disruption of operations and thereby, value destruction, and it’s never about managing your accounting risks due to currency changes,” McKinsey’s Tim Koller and Marc Goedhart suggest on the McKinsey on Finance podcast. The only effective form of hedging that works for both the long and short terms is natural hedging, which in turn depends on the feasibility of moving the production process across markets. Koller and Goedhart explain that there are different kinds of currency risk. One example is “translation risk,” where a company has operations in different companies, but translates the results back to its home currency — that does not affect the internal profit margin of the business. A more structural risk is where a typical exporter that incurs cost in one currency and receives revenues in another. For the former, “because it affects their reported results, a 5-10% decline in cashflows for most large companies is really not going to have any effect on their ability to invest going forward … Reported earnings is not what matters, what matters is what can they do about it … and what are investors expecting … and in most cases, investors are not surprised.” For some export-dependent businesses, however, there may be reason to have to resort to hedging in order to cover what essentially amounts to a margin risk. Even then, the effect may be temporary. In order to overcome longer-term currency changes, do what some automobile companies are doing: diversify production platforms, a natural hedge. (Listening time 23:54)

SOMEONE TO FOLLOW

Comedy accounts on Twitter, part 1: You don’t just need to follow comedy accounts on the cesspool that is Twitter – you should probably start putting together a comedy accounts column in Tweetdeck, if you use it. Herewith, installment one of an occasional series:

@manwhohasitall Bio: Top tips for men juggling a successful career and fatherhood

Background: Growing out of the Super Busy Dad Tumblr, and in the past few weeks has been highlighted in a number of publications, @manwhohasitall successfully parodies the bizarre and condescending way in which women’s media gives advice to women on maintaining a balance between work and family life — condescension and unrealistic advice often given from women to women. The tweets scathingly highlight backhanded remarks that often would make for perfectly acceptable advice to give to women, but are things men simply don’t have to worry about:

@manwhohasitall 4 Nov 2015

To all intelligent men. Don’t be AFRAID of your intelligence! It’s OK to be a man and be intelligent. Some women actually find it attractive

@manwhohasitall 16 Oct 2015

Personally, I think YES, men SHOULD be encouraged to have their own opinions, as long as they are nice with it.

@manwhohasitall 1 Nov 2015

Working dad? Guilt is your worst enemy. Tackle guilt by laughing alone with salad.

HEALTH

Slow down or die: Statistically speaking, workplace stress is taking up to three years off the lives of American workers (depending on their ethnic background, gender and level of education). And if you think you, dear corporate chieftain / entrepreneur / analyst / diplomat are an exception, you’ve got another thing coming. Read “Your job is literally ‘killing’ you” in the Washington Post and The Moment That Made a Tech Guru Slow Down in (God help us) the Daily Beast.

Wondering how you can grow / enter a new market / win promotion if you go slow? Hop over to Skift founder Rafat Ali’s personal blog and read his memo to his team on The Process of Growing Up: Go Slow To Go Fast. Among the highlights: “So what does this “Go Slow To Go Fast” mean to all of us personally? … The idea seems counter-intuitive at first but if you repeat it over and over again, you’ll get it. It means developing the habit of standing back from the dailyness of running the company, running in our daily work lives, really just running for the sake of running, and looking at the patterns and then responding by probing and experimenting.”

ENTREPRENEURS

The surprising secrets of WhatsApp’s success: WhatsApp may have sold to Facebook a year ago for USD 19 bn, but that transaction did nothing to make the company’s founders any more media friendly. Wired got one of the two — ex-Yahoo Brian Acton — to agree to a written interview. One of the clearest takeaways: Despite being one of the largest social platforms in the world, WhatsApp says it grew like wildfire outside the United States because it used a very old-school tool: Agreements with mobile network operators, not social media, to get on people’s phones.

“If you want eggs, take care of the hen,” says 83 year old billionaire and buddhist priest Kazuo Inamori. Bloomberg describes him as The Buddhist Priest Who Became a Billionaire Snubbing Investors. Inamori established electronics giant Kyocera Corp, created the USD 64 bn phone carrier KDDI Corp, and led Japan Airlines out of bankruptcy in 2010 to turning a profit in 2011. His secret? “Company leaders should seek to make all their employees happy, both materially and intellectually… That’s their purpose. It shouldn’t be to work for shareholders.”

Wamda has updated its list of global VCs that have a proven interest in MENA startups.

Upcoming events:

• 12-13 December: RiseUp Summit 2015: The largest and most significant event for startups in Egypt of the year, held at the Greek Campus in downtown Cairo. A who’s who of both experienced startup types and wannabes as well as top regional and global investors and industry players will be on hand. (Register here)

PERSONAL TECH

The BlackBerry Priv launches in the U.K. today. Cnet has the inside story of how BlackBerry’s first Android handset came into being. We don’t care enough to fly to LHR for a Priv anymore than we did to line-up at this week’s ridiculous U.S.-wannabe iPhone 6S launches in Cairo. The first reviews were out just a few minutes before we were due to dispatch this morning, so we haven’t had time to read them. That said: The Wall Street Journal seems to love the device. Wired says it’s just what BlackBerry die-hards have been waiting for. Engadget is neutral. Gizmodo says it wouldn’t wish the phone on its worst enemy.

TECH

PayPal launched an Arabic version of its website last week in an attempt “to connect with a wider pool of e-commerce users across the Middle East & North Africa to the global marketplace, and to drive growth of its online payment services in the region.” Said Regional Director Kivanc Onan: “We see huge growth potential in the Middle East & North Africa region — where registration has jumped significantly in recent years, across the 12 countries in which we are currently present.” According to CPI Financial, the company had turned to “Arabic speaking PayPal enthusiasts for an official hackathon to develop, test and launch the platform successfully” during the development stages of the Arabic website.

Why did the very company that killed the bookstore industry just open a physical bookstore? Vox’s Matthew Yglesias dives in to to explain Why Amazon just opened a physical bookstore. To understand why Amazon would do that, since it seems counter intuitive, first you must separate Amazon from the high-tech start up business model. Amazon is a highly praised company on Wall Street despite turning slim profit margins, but it’s those very slim margins that shed some insight into Amazon’s business model. “Make the customer as happy possible,” because by definition, a profitable firm is one that charges its customers more than it needs to. Adding to that that retail is generally a slim margin business, what Yglesias instead suggests is not necessarily an intention to sell physical books, but a strategic means to acquiring same-day delivery hubs to make same-day delivery on Amazon much less sporadic.

Facebook is going to be paying video owners who upload videos to the site, according to Wired. Videos on Facebook garner 8 bn views a day, said CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who sees videos as the future king of internet content. Facebook is looking to attract “a certain class of content,” and has a created a business model which will offer content owners a share in the revenue from their videos. The model helped Youtube grow to the video-sharing behemoth it is today, and turned shooting 15 second vines into a legitimate profession.

THE WEEK’S MOST-CLICKED STORIES

The most-clicked stories in Enterprise in the past week were:

• 14 ghostly photos of famous Egyptian landmarks with no tourists (Business Insider, take blood pressure meds before reading)
• A delicious takedown of Reham Saeed (Youtube, Arabic)
• Canada’s new defence minister is one tough… (image on twitter)
• Mohamed El-Erian: Cash entices as central banks diverge (Financial Times, paywall)
• Possible leak of the amendments creating the value-added tax (Al Borsa)
• Stress is your brain trying to avoid something (Harvard Business Review)
• The real roots of midlife crisis (The Atlantic)

THIS WEEK IN: BUSINESS AND ECONOMY

The business community continues to build plans and budgets for FY2016 without a clear sense of where the EGP is headed against the USD — and it’s starting to show up in indicators of business confidence. The October Emirates NBD Purchasing Managers Index (PMI) for Egypt was released on Tuesday, with business conditions in Egypt’s non-oil private sector worsening at the quickest pace since February after having improved in three of the previous four months. Issues undermining the non-oil private sector’s output included “problems with power supplies and the availability of FX,” Jean-Paul Pigat, Senior Economist at Emirates NBD, is quoted as saying. (Read, pdf)

Otherwise notable this week:

• President Abdel Fattah El Sisi gave a televised address to the nation on Sunday, where he promised that natural gas shortages faced by industry would be resolved by the end of the month. He also promised that the higher food prices faced by low-income consumers would be brought down soon through use of co-ops run by the Armed Forces. The full speech is available in Arabic here, running time: 58:45.
• Siemens said it could expand upon its original agreement signed at the EEDC by an additional 800 MW of capacity
• The Export Subsidy Fund got an EGP 1 bn top-up, AMAY reported
• ASEC Cement, a subsidiary of Qalaa Holdings, will take in about EGP 1 bn after inking an SPA for its stakes in ASEC Minya and ASEC Ready Mix
• The budget deficit improved to 11.5% in FY 2014-15, down from 12.2% the year before.

THIS WEEK IN: POLITICS

The crash of Flight KGL 9268 in the Sinai dominated the political agenda this week and followed President Abdel Fattah El Sisi to London. The plane crashed after having disappeared from radar screens less than a half an hour into its flight, killing all 224 passengers onboard. North Sinai Daesh affiliate Wilayat Sina claimed responsibility for the downing of the jet, with investigations still ongoing to definitively determine the cause of the crash.

• El Sisi was the focus of criticism from both traditional media and social media for comments he made during his televised address earlier this week. He was perceived as saying it was inappropriate he be criticized for not being physically present to preside over disaster relief in Alexandria during its flooding last month.
• Television presenter Reham Saeed is set to stand trial for defaming a victim of violence and harassment who she featured on her program, where Saeed blamed the woman for her assault on her sleeveless shirt.
• Photojournalist Esraa El Taweel had her pre-trial detention extended for another 45 days on charges that she is a member of the Muslim Brotherhood and disseminating false news, charges which she has consistently denied.
• Flooding in Alexandria and Beheira on Wednesday left at least 12 dead.

ON YOUR WAY OUT

An economist’s take on modern rap music: One theme that is overwhelmingly common in rap music is that it is intrinsically capitalist, economist Noah Smith writes. The dominant lyrical message in mainstream rap, replacing gangsta rap, is “about working hard, taking risks, reaping financial rewards, and enjoying a money-driven status-conscious consumerist lifestyle. In other words, a total and utter embrace of the capitalist dream.” Smith says rap musicians are aware of the importance of having good formal economic institutions, but “an economic niche has been carved out and reserved for poor Americans. That niche offers the promise of a middle-class income, but at the price of horrible risk to life and limb. It has encouraged informal marketplaces with weak institutions, leading to high transaction costs and numerous market failures. No wonder rappers are so proud at having escaped that situation and made it into the regular economy.”

Meet Japan’s “hidden caste of untouchables.” “The men here are dicing up some of the most expensive and highly prized animals on the planet. This is where Japan’s world famous wagyu beef is prepared — prime steaks, shot through with ribbons of fat, that can set you back eye-watering prices. … It’s a process requiring such immense skill, training and mental fortitude that mastering the job can take a decade.” It’s also a process carried out by people who are almost completely alienated from one of the most homogenous societies in the world. (Read)

A new biography of Bush the Bad features criticism from Bush the Good: Notes the New York Times: “After years of holding back, former President George Bush has finally broken his public silence about some of the key figures in his son’s administration, issuing scathing critiques of Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld.”

Are you a film buff? The 37th Cairo International Film Festival kicks off this coming Wednesday (11 November), and Mada Masr has a very solid rundown of the expected highlights, with plenty of links to trailers. The “core programing looks interesting and unusually gritty,” the site says. We’d love to see the Estonian-German entry 1944 as well as Bosnia’s Everyday Life and Croatia’s The High Sun.