Musings about Multinational Corporations

This episode begins by highlighting issues that Wells Fargo, Google, Apple, and Anthropic face with respect to China. It then focuses intently on Nvidia's challenges relating to a China antitrust investigation and China’s pursuit of semiconductor independence. It then shifts to the United States’s revocation of Validated End User Status for Samsung and SK Hynix and its possible implications for the companies, their chip equipment suppliers, and their competitors. Following this, it explores the latest news about the TikTok divestiture. Afterwards, it examines Washington’s war against European and Korean efforts to regulate tech companies. The show ends with a discussion of the unraveling fabric of Shein and Temu.

This episode reviews various corporate exits from China and the tactics some companies like Apple are using to facilitate their China derisking; delves into the "unusual" and "unprecedented" chip tax deal AMD and Nvidia struck with the US government; examines President Donald Trump's hate and love fest with Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan; and charts out Google's map data struggles with Korea as well as Korea's frictions with Mercedes Benz and Westinghouse.

In this episode, we discuss the love and hate swirling around AI semiconductor leader Nvidia.  Following this, we cover continuing challenges for companies in China such as Apple, Sam’s Club, and Tesla. The second half looks at the ongoing conundrums that Chinese companies such as TikTok are managing in the US, Europe, and Korea. We then zoom in on the travails of Google in Australia, Korea, and Pakistan. The last segment covers tech company content and competition regulation, an issue companies like X, Telegram, xAI, Meta, Apple, and Google can’t avoid!

Season 2, episode 7 delves into the ups and downs of companies in China; discusses the assault against Chinese companies in the United Kingdom and elsewhere; provides the latest on one of our favs TikTok; gives you the latest on the travails of Shein; motors around with Harley in Japan; and closes with Korea's clashes with foreign companies and countries and their clashes with it.

Our June podcast ponders the sweet and sour environment surrounding companies dealing with China with a special focus on Nvidia and three hotel giants including Hilton; details the sour apples infecting the Apple tree; probes TikTok's travails; examines ongoing issues of censorship, content moderation, and media control; and dives deep on DeepSeek troubles in Korea and the challenges other tech companies are facing there despite Washington's unhappiness.

The April edition of the Musings about Multinational Corporations podcast examines the political and economic challenges facing companies like Apple and Nvidia as they are flagellated about, flirt with, and flee China; watches the continuing saga of TikTok whose battle for survival in the US of A never seems to end; blasts to the United Kingdom to cover the stealing of a Chinese steel plant and other Chinese investment travails there; and discusses countries continuing regulation of tech companies in the face of US threats of retaliation.

This episode probes the ever mobile Apple planes, with only one having a Cook aboard; discusses Walmart and Costco's discovery that low priced goods may be politically costly; and notes the release of jailed consultancy employees and China's efforts to court foreign executives while concurrently making implicitly demands they support its cause. It overviews European efforts to manage high-tech giants to promote fair competition, Japan and Korea's emulations, and US government pressures on Europe and its Asian allies to back off. It closes with coverage of a cyberattack on X from mysterious corners!

This episode continues our coverage of DeepSeek; looks at the stuck and ticking clocks facing TikTok; discusses the Apple plane's successful landing in Indonesia; offers intelligence on Apple intelligence in China; charts out the Google maps Gulf of something imbroglio; and offers a mix of material on topics like Telegram, Australian content moderation, and Rumble's rumble with Brazil.

In this episode, we discuss the TikTok's ticking clock and the effort, by some, to rescue it; track the Apple plane waiting to unload iPhone 16s in Indonesia; dive deep into the growing control and regulation of DeepSeek; examine EU and US measures affecting fast-retailer Shein and also Temu; and cover the ongoing battle between governments and tech companies on multiple fronts.

This episode, the first of 2025, delves into TikTok's challenges, above all in the US of A; Google's pressures chamber in East Asia countries like Japan and Korea and Russia; Australia's path breaking ban on social media usage for children; and Meta's challenges in Australia and the European Union (what's new?) and its fluctuating relationship with Russia.