*´¨`*•.¸¸.•*´¨`*•.¸¸.•by your best friend erin griffith•*´¨`*•.¸¸.•*´¨`*•.¸¸.•
Buddies, DID U KNOW: It is rough out there for a billionaire.
Politicians don’t think they should exist. People are asking why don’t rich people just stop working? They’re complaining about the “glass floor” that keeps America’s richest idiots at the top. They’re annoyed that Elon Musk’s weed smoking podcast somehow cost taxpayers $5 million. Business Hero™ Mark Zuckerberg keeps getting forced to justify his obscene wealth and power. (It “may be optimal,” he says.)
This week I went to the premiere of the final season of HBO’s Silicon Valley and it was open season on billionaires.
How’s a billionaire supposed to sell any books in this hostile environment?!
Well.
Business Hero™ Marc Benioff, promoting a book that he wrote about himself called “Trailblazer,” has an idea, which he wrote about in the New York Times:
To my fellow business leaders and billionaires, I say that we can no longer wash our hands of our responsibility for what people do with our products. Yes, profits are important, but so is my reputation for not being an evil villain.*
*I may have paraphrased that last part.
Private Equity tycoon and Hero of Business™ Stephen Schwarzman is promoting his book, “What It Takes.” (Not having read it I assume the “what” is joining a secret society at Yale followed by Harvard!!)
Heroes™, I hope you’re sitting down for this truth-bomb: Steve offers a full-throated defense of his species, saying that billionaires “didn't become prosperous sitting and just watching television.”
Important Business Matters
Startup everyone’s into: Here’s a company that raised $70 million before launching…
Startup everyone’s over: Compass, the other big SoftBank-backed real estate company, wants to be very clear that it is NOT WeWork.
Reason to go on living: Vision Fund 2 is all about the profits.
Reason to take up residence under your weighted blanket: Photos you uploaded to random social media sites years ago may be used to train facial recognition algorithms.
Latest crush: The Vatican’s “click to pray” wearable device.
Latest heartbreak: You never see your friends anymore because our jobs suck. And startups really need HR help.
Latest thing the kids are into: Generational rage:
Latest thing the olds are into: An actual reality show giving millennials financial makeovers for their student debt.
Latest evidence that they think we are total f-ing idiots: Facebook could have stopped the Iraq war, among other things.
Latest thing the cryptonerds are into: Running far far away from Facebook’s crypto project.
Latest thing Americans lost: Dinner.
lol nothing matters
Fellow Business Heroes™, it is time to ask ourselves: What do you do when Giphy.com stops working in the middle of writing your newsletter?
current status, expressed by stock photography:
“may be optimal!”
*´¨`*•.¸¸.•*´¨`*•.¸¸.•the end•*´¨`*•.¸¸.•*´¨`*•.¸¸.•
Thanks for reading, buddies! If you enjoy EGTttHoB™ please forward it to all of your BFFs. They can sign up here. There's also a "like" button you can hit right here.
If you are a new reader and wondering, wtf this is, well, welcome and here is my attempt at explaining.