Side Notes by Zerodha Varsity

American Express is one of Warren Buffett's longest-standing bets. For over three decades, Berkshire Hathaway has held onto AmEx, through recessions, market crashes, and massive shifts in the payments industry. This is interesting given that AmEx operates a far smaller network than Visa and Mastercard.

So what makes AmEx different? Why has Buffett never sold? And how does a company with fewer cards and lower acceptance still generate outsized returns? 

Listen to American Express' interesting story in this season finale.

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Disclaimer: The stocks or financial instruments discussed in this podcast are meant for educational purposes only. Please do not consider them recommendations or financial advice of any form.

Louise Philippe, Monte Carlo, Blackberrys, Bella Vita, and Da Milano are all foreign names of Indian brands. Is there a reason why Indian brands adopt English or European-sounding names? Does it have to do with perceptions of quality and trust? Or is it because we have not yet gotten out of our colonial mindset?

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Disclaimer: The stocks or financial instruments discussed in this podcast are meant for educational purposes only. Please do not consider them recommendations or financial advice of any form.

Intel's quintessential Intel Inside sticker on laptops and in the marketing materials of other PC brands helped it achieve global dominance in processing chips. 

However, another brand, TSMC, without any marketing and visibility on any computing products, somehow managed to take over Intel and become a far bigger semiconductor company. TSMC now commands more than half of the world's chip market today.

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Disclaimer: The stocks or financial instruments discussed in this podcast are meant for educational purposes only. Please do not consider them recommendations or financial advice of any form.

The Toyota Production System (TPS) is a manufacturing system to ensure minimum wastage while constantly striving to improve quality. TPS is efficient, flexible, and extremely quality-conscious.

Poka Yoke is one of the many ideas developed under the TPS. This revolutionary system has inspired everything from a washing machine to aircraft.

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Disclaimer: The stocks or financial instruments discussed in this podcast are meant for educational purposes only. Please do not consider them recommendations or financial advice of any form.

In 2004, Lenovo bought IBM’s iconic PC division. But this wasn’t an overnight leap — it was the result of years spent learning inside the value chain.

Starting as a distributor of laptops for global brands like HP, Toshiba, and IBM in China, Lenovo moved up the value chain to become a manufacturer and is now a global leader with over one-quarter of the market share for laptops worldwide.

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Disclaimer: The stocks or financial instruments discussed in this podcast are meant for educational purposes only. Please do not consider them recommendations or financial advice of any form.

Apple is known to be restrictive in letting its devices connect or share data with non-Apple devices. It has a lot to do with delivering a clean user experience and utmost digital security. In a way, it also compels an Apple user to buy other Apple products. So, it was a surprise when Apple introduced the universal Type-C charging ports in its iPhones. While Type-C solved for user experience, Apple did it after it was forced by European regulators to either introduce Type-C chargers for its iPhones or risk losing Europe as a market.

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Disclaimer: The stocks or financial instruments discussed in this podcast are meant for educational purposes only. Please do not consider them recommendations or financial advice of any form.

This episode explores the journey of Revlon — from a brand that sold glamour and aspiration to one that filed for bankruptcy nearly a century later. It traces Revlon’s early success, its marketing genius, the landmark hostile takeover that reshaped corporate law, and the debt-fuelled decisions that weakened the company over decades. The episode also examines how Revlon used Chapter 11 to survive and what its turnaround tells us about branding, leverage, and resilience in modern business.

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Disclaimer: The stocks or financial instruments discussed in this podcast are meant for educational purposes only. Please do not consider them recommendations or financial advice of any form.

Narayana Health's 40% profit comes from just a small business in the Cayman Islands. Is it the pricing power or a different brand identity that Narayana enjoys in Cayman? Cayman might be a star of a business, but there is also some risk.

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Disclaimer: The stocks or financial instruments discussed in this podcast are meant for educational purposes only. Please do not consider them recommendations or financial advice of any form.

Trent's ROE growth perhaps explains the rally in its stock, and Asian Paints' ROE slowdown perhaps explains the dull performance of its stock. Maybe it is the time frame you look at. Trent has outperformed Asian Paints over the last five years but underperformed over the last year.

Zerodha Varsity on Social Media:

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Disclaimer: The stocks or financial instruments discussed in this podcast are meant for educational purposes only. Please do not consider them recommendations or financial advice of any form.

Nestlé's Nespresso was a failed product when it was launched in the 1980s. A switch in product and pricing model helped make it a success. It was Nestlé's moat for a very long time, but then competitors broke it. Nestle came out strong nonetheless.

Zerodha Varsity on Social Media:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/zerodhavarsity/

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YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@varsitybyzerodha

Disclaimer: The stocks or financial instruments discussed in this podcast are meant for educational purposes only. Please do not consider them recommendations or financial advice of any form.