Best of Pax Westona: December 2020

• The death of the department store and the American middle class (Vox)
• DoorDash: The value of speed (The Generalist)
• Inside the (surprisingly) big business of packaged ice (The Guardian)
• Roger Martin: Strategy and design thinking (Medium)
• The rise of Japan's loyalty point influencers (Rest of World)
• It's time to replace the public corporation (HBR)
• An oral history of the world's biggest coupon (NYT)
• Roger Martin: Strategy and integrative thinking (Medium)
• Tire Change: How Canadian Tire's new CEO has managed a baptism by virus (Globe and Mail)
• Jenna Lyons' J. Crew afterlife (The New Yorker)

 Stephan's Thursday Picks

• Surprise ending for publishers: In 2020, business was good (NYT)
• Jenna Lyons' J. Crew afterlife (The New Yorker)
• Brazil is famous for its meat. But vegetarianism is soaring (NYT)
• What is 'lab-grown' or 'cell-based' meat (Globe and Mail)
• From the archives (2020): The Canadians in a billion-dollar race to cure coughing (Globe and Mail)

 Stephan's Wednesday Picks

• The items that defined 2020 (Vox)
• Chobani's anti-CEO is a pro-employee billionaire in expansion mode (Bloomberg)
• The future of home decor is green (Globe and Mail)
• Is dairy farming cruel to cows (NYT)
• What did 2020 do to retail (HBR)

Stephan's Tuesday Picks

• On the inseparability of where-to-play and how-to-win (Medium)
• Why Google's recipe results are meaningless (Slate)
• How SoulCycle lost its soul (Vox)
• With Alibaba investigation, China gets tougher on tech (NYT)
• Galen Weston becomes controlling shareholder of grocery empire (Globe and Mail)

 Stephan's Thursday Picks

• Coronavirus pandemic crushes supply chain, workers on both ends (Globe and Mail)
• Last minute shoppers avoid stores, hit websites - and orders are piling up (Bloomberg)
• U.S Justice Dept. accuses Walmart of fueling opioid crisis (NYT)
• Gift cards are the go-to holiday gifts of 2020 (WSJ)
• From the archives (2014): The Steve Jobs of beer (The Atlantic)

 Stephan's Wednesday Picks

• Michael Medline has returned Sobeys back to health; now he looks to the horizon (Financial Post)
• How Amazon wins: By steamrolling rivals and partners (WSJ)
• How restaurants retooled for takeout - and survived (Wired)
• Walmart to pilot test livestreamed video shopping on TikTok (Tech Crunch)
• Amazon and Walmart have raked in billions during the pandemic - and shared almost none of it with their workers (Brookings)

 Stephan's Tuesday Picks

• Strategy and integrative thinking (Medium)
• Tire Change: How Canadian Tire's new CEO has managed a baptism by virus (Globe and Mail)
• Food delivery fees: How to avoid the $18 burger (WSJ)
• Auctioning off a dead mall (NYT)
• Metro pays out near-maximum bonuses to executives after topping profit targets (Globe and Mail)