when yr bromance is on the rocks

12 middle fingers and 83 clowns

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

Buddies, the Business Heroes™ are at it again.

• Those Tesla robots were operated by humans, ofc and lol.

• Zuckerberg made his wife a custom Porche minivan while also firing some employees who used $25 meal credits to buy toothpaste. (In case you were worried, one of the employees was making $400k, so, y’know, they’ll be fine.)

• The Worldcoin orbs are just called “World” now and they have a message: We need more orbs! An all-timer quote from a World exec: “We need more Orbs. Lots more Orbs. Probably on the order of a thousand times more Orbs than we have today. Not only more Orbs but more Orbs in more places.” I repeat, we 🔮 need 🔮🔮 more 🔮🔮🔮 orbs 🔮🔮🔮🔮🔮🔮🔮🔮!

• The founder of Byju, an enormous ed-tech start-up in India that acquired 25+ start-ups and expanded into 40 countries, says his company, once worth $22 billion is now worth zero. $22 billion to zero! It is difficult for me to even fathom a downfall that dramatic.

• And in case you are still following the ever-escalating Wordpress drama, it appears that nobody involved is planning to stop posting about it. I have no view on the mess. But I would bet any Business Hero™ does not love it when the internal reaction to their latest strategy announcement is 12 middle fingers and 83 clowns.

(image via)

In other news

🗞️🗞️🗞️ A scoop from some colleagues and me this week about everyone’s favorite company, OpenAI:

OpenAI and Microsoft's "bromance" is on the rocks. The partnership between the startup and the tech giant has been hugely successful for both, until recently. Now they're increasingly competing. OAI wants more compute. And MSFT is trying to build its own LLM. Cue the drama:

🎭 Microsoft and OpenAI’s Close Partnership Shows Signs of Fraying 🎭

Important Business Matters

Startup everyone’s into: A wildfire tracking app called Watch Duty.

Startup everyone’s over: Teslas are nearly unusable as squad cars.

Reason to go on living: “I’m not here to make friends” is dead.

Reason to take up residence under your weighted blanket: They’re hacking our internet, so that’s cool.

Latest crush: No crush this week, please share yours!

Latest heartbreak: Epic is killing Sketchfab and everyone’s failing the CFA.

Latest thing the kids are into: 12-year-old interior designers.

Latest thing the olds are into: LinkedIn comedians (kill me).

Latest thing the newlyweds are into: Registering for a downpayment on a house.

Bonus thing: We have previously discussed the anonymous Business Heroe™ CEO(s?) of Boar’s Head. NYT has delivered with this juicy and very dramatic history of the company’s behind-the-scenes family feuds.

an AI-generated summary of this newsletter:

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

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