tiny robots made out of spam

forever chasing that first sip of coke

*´¨`*•.¸¸.•*´¨`*•.¸¸.•by your best friend erin griffith•*´¨`*•.¸¸.•*´¨`*•.¸¸.•

Friends, did you, like me, spend the weekend guessing which Business Hero™ of Silicon Valley only drinks the first sip of a Coke then throws the rest away, only to repeat this action three or four more times each day, per this juicy (and anonymous) story about private chefs in SF Standard? That second sip, it’s just not the same.

How about the billionaire who demands the Michelin starred chef they hired make sure all labels in the beverage fridge are facing forward? Or the one that hands the chef their gum to throw away? And which one do you think accuses their chef of gaslighting them about adding sugar to their meals?

Billionaires, they’re just like us!

In other news

I wrote some stories this week. One is about the election (sorry) …and crypto people (truly, I am sorry).

🚀 Crypto Industry Lobbies Trump and His Allies to Capitalize on Election Wins 📉

And the other is a delightful journey into the hopeful, doomery, goofy heart of A.I. art. To report it, I went to an A.I. museum, where tiny robots made out of Spam typed out A.I. gibberish onto a screen, a phone booth offered conversations with Mr. Rogers, and a puppet screamed at me for help in my own voice.

I also took a Waymo to a beautiful midcentury modern house overlooking a cliff in Glen Park that was being used, of course, as a start-up office. Me and a bunch of A.I. workers sat in the living room and watched some actors recreate the very recent, very dramatic history of that one time time A.I.’s most famous worker of all, Sam Altman, got fired.

It was a classic San Francisco summer night: foggy and freezing. The guy sitting next to me murmured that it felt like the perfect setting for a murder. The play covered all the stuff you might imagine. Social awkwardness, ketamine, p(doom), polycules. No murders occurred.

I also went to a comedy show about working in tech. It’s popular enough that tech companies are asking the comedians involved to come roast them. It is widely known that the tech industry’s most powerful moguls have a great sense of humor and love being mocked. I’m sure that will go great!

Anyway, this story gave me hope in the future of creativity and it was fun to write:

🤖🧠 Stand-Up, Drama and Spambots: The Creative World Takes On A.I.🤖🧠

Also

Yes, I am on bluesky.

Important Business Matters

Startup everyone’s into: Wicked.com. (This is not a link to Wicked.com, do not go to Wicked.com)

Startup everyone’s over: No thank you to this.

Reason to go on living: This deliciously stupid tale of Caitlin Jenner’s crypto career goes from “Not a scam 😂” to “why would you put your life savings into a meme coin?” real fast.

Reason to take up residence under your weighted blanket: Palantir is gonna start predicting future crimes. Also, yay even more surveillance.

Latest crush: Minnesota Viking Cam Bynum, who did all of Raygun’s best moves in the end zone, fantastic stuff.

Latest heartbreak: Were you among Friday’s 60 million people — more than the World Series, Wimbledon or the NBA finals — who were too curious to look away from the Internet’s saddest spectacle? (I was and all I could think was why? Why did I do this? Why are we as a society even doing this?)

Latest thing the kids are into: ???Gavin Newsom???

Latest thing the kids are over: Siblings.

Latest thing the olds are into: Dark goop, where woowoo meets MAGA. Related: What the fuck is a ‘vaccine skeptic’?

Latest thing the mediocre criminals are into: Dressing up in a bear suit and using a meat shredder to damage luxury vehicles and file for big insurance claims. Incredible! A quick word of advice to future bear-suit insurance fraud-committers, if you plan to submit security camera footage as evidence: Maybe don’t use the door handle to get in the car.

Hot new demographic: Perimenopausal ladies.

a dall-e summary of this newsletter:

yet another brilliant, perfect and accurate representation of this newsletter by A.I.

*´¨`*•.¸¸.•*´¨`*•.¸¸.•the end•*´¨`*•.¸¸.•*´¨`*•.¸¸.•

Thanks for reading, buddies! If you enjoy EGTttHoB™ please forward it to all of your BFFs. There's also a "like" button you can hit somewhere on this email.

If you are a new reader and wondering, wtf this is, well, welcome. Here is slightly more information.

PS. Thank you to reader Hunter Walk for pointing out the broken link in last week’s edition - here’s correct link for our Start-up everyone’s into: Function Health.