hotwash the blip
(sung to the tune of ghostride the whip)
*´¨`*•.¸¸.•*´¨`*•.¸¸.•by your best friend erin griffith•*´¨`*•.¸¸.•*´¨`*•.¸¸.•
Buddies,
This newsletter is now a Tech Movies Substack, okay? It takes awhile to find your niche and 13 years in, I’m hitting my stride.
Recall that right around the turn of the decade, there was a wave of start-up rise and fall books that led to a wave of start-up rise and fall series. It was a great time in the culture for start-up culture. A bounty of content for fans of the “founders behaving badly” genre. We had Uber (Super Pumped the book, Super Pumped the show), WeWork (Cult of We and Billion Dollar Loser books, WeCrashed the show), and Theranos (Bad Blood book, The Dropout show).
Then there was a little lull but now Hollywood is gearing up for a fresh new wave of founder stories. First there’s The Altruists, a Netflix project on Sam Bankman-Fried, Caroline Ellison and the downfall of FTX. The casting choices in this one — the mega-hot Julia Garner and Anthony Boyle as Caroline and SBF — had my group chats howling.
Sure, everyone gets a glow-up when they’re portrayed in a scripted series because actors are a different, more beautiful species than us ugly-ass normies, but this one was apparently too generous for crypto criminals and the Internet did not like it! One commenter accused Netflix of “hotwashing” the couple, which, lol.
The other tech movie in the works is about the weekend that OpenAI briefly fired Sam Altman. This one lacks the dramatic rise and fall narrative of the others. The “fall” is just that Sam wasn’t CEO for a few days but everything went, more or less, back to normal by the end of the week. Employees literally call it “The Blip,” which is not super-compelling as a narrative arc.
Maybe I’ve just read too much about this event already. On top of all the news stories, there was also a play, which I wrote about here, and two full books (and counting). None of the authors appear to be involved in the screenplay, which was written by Simon Rich. So at least it might be funny? As we learned with Mountainhead, a lot of these characters are humorless.
Anyway, the casting: Andrew Garfield is set to play Sam Altman. Sure, why not, EXCEPT: Does this movie exist in the same universe as The Social Network? I hope so, because if Mark Zuckerberg makes an appearance, and if Jesse Eisenberg reprises his role, hilarious hijinks will ensue when all the characters try to figure out how the hell Eduardo Saverin became the CEO of OpenAI.
Lastly, I can’t talk about tech and film without mentioning this hilarious story about how OpenAI spent $3 million making a nine minute video of Sam Altman and Jony Ive walking down around North Beach like two super cool and normal guys. The video cost a mere .0005% of price OpenAI paid to buy Ive’s company, so why not! What is money!
Also
Anyone else underwhelmed by the quality of Musk/Trump breakup memes and jokes? The Ashley St. Clair post was funny. The one asking who gets custody of David Sacks gave me a light chuckle. As did this one from the Mountain Goats. Aside from that, is “men are so emotional” and recycling the old “kenrick vs drake except its two drakes” really the best we got?? If you have seen good posts, please send my way.
Important Business Matters
Startup everyone’s into: Crypto IPOs.
Startup everyone’s over: “Nudify” apps advertising on Facebook.
Reason to go on living: The era of the broker fee is coming to an end.
Reason to take up residence under your weighted blanket: Of course the AI DOGE used to cancel important VA contracts hallucinated and made mistakes.
Latest crush: The only woman to ever found and lead a Fortune 500 company.
Latest heartbreak: The midlife crisis is coming for millennials lol
Latest thing the kids are into: Stay at home sons.
Latest thing the olds are into: EGTttHoB™ is not in the business of shilling or sponcon, but I am such a fan of my keychain ear plugs I need to spread the word. My ears are basically fucked from irresponsible college show-going. (Love having to plaster a big stupid grin on my face in loud restaurants or bars to hide the fact that I can’t follow a single conversation.) Yet I never remember to bring ear plugs to shows unless they are already on my keychain. As a bonus, the tiny silver case they come in looks like it should contain drugs. NOPE, just a woman in her 40s strapping on PPE to enjoy rock and roll safely and responsibly.
Latest thing the Christians are into: AI slop. They love it!
Latest thing the tech right is into: “The Valley is losing their shit”: Reactions to the Trump-Musk break-up.
a dall-e summary of this newsletter:
Ahanda Seyfried, so close
*´¨`*•.¸¸.•*´¨`*•.¸¸.•the end•*´¨`*•.¸¸.•*´¨`*•.¸¸.•
Thanks for reading, buddies!
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If you sincerely hate reading it, tell an enemy!
these are the earplugs we used at our daughter's volleyball tournaments. now we're all uncool together!
I met Marion and Herbert Sandler in the 1980s. They offered me a job at Golden West Financial. I asked for the weekend to think it over. Then I received an anonymous call (how'd they get my number?) from someone who knew I had the offer warning me not to take it because the company culture was toxic and the problems stemmed from the top. I turned them down for several reasons but that was one of them.