WEBVTT - The Era of the Business Idiot, Part 2 0:00:02.800 --> 0:00:07.080 Zone Media. Hello there, I'm at Zetron and welcome to 0:00:07.120 --> 0:00:21.720 Better Offline and you're on the second part of the 0:00:21.720 --> 0:00:24.680 Business City at Trilogy. And indeed that was a concept 0:00:24.720 --> 0:00:27.480 I introduced you to last episode. Think of the business 0:00:27.480 --> 0:00:29.600 idiot as a kind of con artist, except the con 0:00:29.600 --> 0:00:31.960 has become the standard way of doing business for an 0:00:32.000 --> 0:00:35.360 alarmingly large part of society. The business audiot is the 0:00:35.360 --> 0:00:37.960 manager that doesn't seem to do anything but keeps getting promoted, 0:00:38.000 --> 0:00:40.240 and the CEO of a public company that says boring, 0:00:40.280 --> 0:00:44.360 specious nonsense about artificial intelligence that the tenured professor that 0:00:44.400 --> 0:00:47.400 you wish would die, the administrator whose only job appears 0:00:47.440 --> 0:00:49.919 to be opening and closing the laptop, and the consultant 0:00:49.960 --> 0:00:51.640 that can come up with a million reasons to charge 0:00:51.640 --> 0:00:53.760 you more money, yet not one metric to judge their 0:00:53.840 --> 0:00:57.240 success by. Also the marketing executive that's worked exactly three 0:00:57.320 --> 0:00:59.440 years at every major cloud player but does not appear 0:00:59.480 --> 0:01:01.680 to have done it anything. And of course the investor 0:01:01.720 --> 0:01:04.080 that invests based on founders but really means guys that 0:01:04.120 --> 0:01:07.240 look and sound exactly like me. These people are present 0:01:07.280 --> 0:01:09.600 throughout the private and public sector and our governments too, 0:01:09.640 --> 0:01:12.880 and they paradoxically do nothing of substance, but somehow damage 0:01:12.920 --> 0:01:15.639 everything that they touch. This isn't to say our public 0:01:15.640 --> 0:01:18.000 and private sector is entirely useless, just that these people 0:01:18.040 --> 0:01:20.959 are poisoned so many partss of our power structure that 0:01:21.040 --> 0:01:25.000 avoiding them is entirely impossible. Our economy is oriented around them, 0:01:25.000 --> 0:01:27.840 made easier and more illogical for their benefit because their 0:01:27.880 --> 0:01:30.120 literal only goal in life has been to take and 0:01:30.319 --> 0:01:33.440 use power and help others who feel the same. The 0:01:33.480 --> 0:01:36.560 business is also an authoritarian and will do whatever they 0:01:36.600 --> 0:01:39.400 need to, including harming the institution that they work for 0:01:39.600 --> 0:01:42.119 or those closest to them, like their coworkers, of their community, 0:01:42.280 --> 0:01:45.920 as a means of avoiding true accountability or responsibility. Decades 0:01:45.920 --> 0:01:49.320 of neoliberalism has incentivized their rise because when you incentivize 0:01:49.320 --> 0:01:52.240 society to become management, to manage or run a company, 0:01:52.320 --> 0:01:54.800 rather than do something for a reason or purpose, you're 0:01:54.800 --> 0:01:57.760 incentivizing a kind of corporate narcissism, one that bleeds into 0:01:57.800 --> 0:02:00.440 whatever field the person goes into, be a public or private. 0:02:01.080 --> 0:02:03.840 Our society is in the thrall of dumb management and functions. 0:02:03.880 --> 0:02:07.600 As such, every government, the top quarter of every chart 0:02:07.760 --> 0:02:10.160 features little neroes, who, instead of battling the fire and 0:02:10.240 --> 0:02:12.520 gulfing Rome, are sat in their palaces, strumming an off 0:02:12.600 --> 0:02:15.080 key version of Wonder Wall and the Lyre and grumbling 0:02:15.120 --> 0:02:17.560 about how the firefighters need to work harder and maybe 0:02:17.600 --> 0:02:19.680 we could replace them with an LLM or a smart 0:02:19.680 --> 0:02:23.760 sprinkler system. Every institution keeps its core constituents and labor 0:02:23.760 --> 0:02:27.400 forces at arm's length, and effectively, anything built at scale 0:02:27.480 --> 0:02:30.200 quickly becomes distance from both the customer and the laborer. 0:02:30.480 --> 0:02:34.000 This disconnection or alienation better put sits at the center 0:02:34.040 --> 0:02:36.800 of almost every problem I've ever talked about. Why would 0:02:36.800 --> 0:02:39.600 companies push generative AI in seemingly every part of their 0:02:39.639 --> 0:02:41.800 services even though their customers don't like it and it 0:02:41.800 --> 0:02:45.480 doesn't really work. It's simple they neither know or care 0:02:45.520 --> 0:02:48.200 what the customer wants. They barely know how their businesses function, 0:02:48.600 --> 0:02:50.800 They barely know what their products do, and barely understand 0:02:50.840 --> 0:02:53.280 what their workers are doing, meaning that generative AI feels 0:02:53.320 --> 0:02:55.880 magical because it does an impression of somebody doing an 0:02:55.880 --> 0:02:58.520 impression of somebody doing a job, which is an accurate 0:02:58.560 --> 0:03:01.560 way of describing how most existives and middle managers operate. 0:03:02.560 --> 0:03:05.320 But let me get a little more specific. An IBM 0:03:05.400 --> 0:03:08.720 study based on conversations with two thousand global CEOs recently 0:03:08.720 --> 0:03:11.720 found that only twenty five percent of AI initiatives have 0:03:11.800 --> 0:03:15.000 delivered their expected return on investment over the last few years, 0:03:15.200 --> 0:03:18.120 and were still sixty four percent of the CEO's surveyed 0:03:18.120 --> 0:03:21.600 acknowledged that the risks of falling behind drove their investments 0:03:21.639 --> 0:03:24.120 in some technologies before they had clear understanding of the 0:03:24.200 --> 0:03:27.720 value they brought to the organization. Fifty percent of respondents 0:03:27.720 --> 0:03:30.240 also found that the pace of recent investments has left 0:03:30.280 --> 0:03:35.040 their organizations with disconnected, piecemeal technology, almost as if they 0:03:35.040 --> 0:03:36.800 don't know what they're doing and they're just put in 0:03:36.800 --> 0:03:39.960 AI and stuff because it feels good or for no reason. 0:03:40.760 --> 0:03:43.400 Johnson and Johnson recently decided to shift from a broad 0:03:43.400 --> 0:03:46.640 generative AI experimentation to a focused approach on high value 0:03:46.720 --> 0:03:49.320 use cases. I quote from The Wall Street Journal adding 0:03:49.360 --> 0:03:52.080 that only ten to fifteen percent of use cases were 0:03:52.160 --> 0:03:56.320 driving about eight percent of the value pareto principle MVP 0:03:56.560 --> 0:04:00.880 baby its last two CEOs, Alex Gorsky and Yoki Duato, 0:04:01.000 --> 0:04:03.800 both have MBAs, with current CEO Duato's previous ten years 0:04:03.840 --> 0:04:06.680 at J ANDJ being some sort of chairman or vice president, 0:04:06.960 --> 0:04:09.920 and the previous two CEOs were both pharmaceutical sales and 0:04:09.960 --> 0:04:15.000 marketing people. A fun fact about Bill Gorsky. During his 0:04:15.080 --> 0:04:18.239 first tenure at Johnson Johnson, he led marketing of products 0:04:18.279 --> 0:04:21.200 that deliberately underplayed some drug side effects and paid off 0:04:21.200 --> 0:04:23.760 the largest nursing home pharmacy in America to sell more 0:04:23.800 --> 0:04:27.599 drugs to old people. Well a lovely man. The term 0:04:27.640 --> 0:04:30.159 executive loosely refers to a person who moves around numbers 0:04:30.200 --> 0:04:33.120 and hopes for the best. The modern executive does not lead, 0:04:33.200 --> 0:04:37.000 They prod. Their managers are hall monitors for organizations run 0:04:37.040 --> 0:04:40.280 predominantly by people that by design are entirely removed from 0:04:40.279 --> 0:04:43.240 the business itself, even in roles like marketing. In sales 0:04:43.320 --> 0:04:46.880 were cemos and vps park orders without really participating in 0:04:46.920 --> 0:04:49.960 the process. We talk eagerly about how young people in 0:04:50.160 --> 0:04:53.559 entry level jobs should earn their stripes by doing grunt work, 0:04:53.839 --> 0:04:56.360 and that too, is the neoliberal poison in the veins 0:04:56.400 --> 0:04:59.440 of our society, because by definition, your very first experience 0:04:59.440 --> 0:05:01.640 of the workforce is working hard enough so that you 0:05:01.680 --> 0:05:03.960 don't have to work as hard, and you have to 0:05:04.000 --> 0:05:06.760 do the shit that nobody else wants to do and anyway. 0:05:06.839 --> 0:05:09.479 The same managerial types you bitch about the entitlement and 0:05:09.560 --> 0:05:12.599 unrealistic expectations of young people are the same ones that 0:05:12.600 --> 0:05:15.279 are also viscerating the bottom rung of the career ladder, 0:05:15.480 --> 0:05:18.320 typically by offshoring many of these roles or consolidating them 0:05:18.320 --> 0:05:22.080 in responsibilities that they're increasingly burned out senior workers, or 0:05:22.160 --> 0:05:24.200 SEEAI as a way to eliminate what they see as 0:05:24.240 --> 0:05:27.120 an optional cost center and not the future of their workforce. 0:05:27.360 --> 0:05:29.760 I should also be clear with that this is the 0:05:29.760 --> 0:05:31.919 big thing with AI and jobs right now, that people 0:05:31.920 --> 0:05:34.600 are afraid of these entry level positions that are going 0:05:34.640 --> 0:05:37.000 to get quote automated out. I made a point in 0:05:37.040 --> 0:05:39.080 the last monologue that I want to clear up as well. 0:05:39.360 --> 0:05:42.120 I don't think AI will not take any jobs. I 0:05:42.160 --> 0:05:45.320 think it's taken jobs already. Tons of freelancers, copy editors, 0:05:45.360 --> 0:05:50.680 aren't directors. People are really suffering. The point is these people, 0:05:50.880 --> 0:05:54.599 the business idiots. They want you to believe that AI 0:05:54.720 --> 0:05:58.279 is going to take every job next year, in three months, 0:05:58.560 --> 0:06:00.920 or very soon. It isn't clear how soon. They can't 0:06:00.920 --> 0:06:03.800 tell you they don't understand they're fucking wrong. They need 0:06:03.839 --> 0:06:06.320 you to do this so that you start giving up. 0:06:06.839 --> 0:06:08.880 That you give up because you giving up gives them 0:06:08.920 --> 0:06:12.159 more power. If you believe they can replace you with 0:06:12.240 --> 0:06:15.440 AI that doesn't work or do your job, they will. 0:06:15.520 --> 0:06:18.400 They will do so. Now it may happen to you anyway. 0:06:18.520 --> 0:06:20.599 They may happen that they'll put an AI that can't 0:06:20.640 --> 0:06:22.320 do the shit that you do and replace you with 0:06:22.560 --> 0:06:27.560 properly contract labor. That's gonna happen, regardless of whether AI happens. 0:06:27.600 --> 0:06:30.400 Off suring and contract to work have being eroding employment 0:06:30.400 --> 0:06:33.120 work for a long time at will. Employment in America 0:06:33.160 --> 0:06:35.880 is a big fucking problem. It always has been. The 0:06:35.920 --> 0:06:38.920 way that labor is treated here is fucking insane. And 0:06:39.000 --> 0:06:41.320 a little comment as well for this episode. As I 0:06:41.400 --> 0:06:44.760 record this, the Vox Union is yet to get an 0:06:44.800 --> 0:06:48.200 agreement with Vox. In the event that Vox does not 0:06:48.360 --> 0:06:50.720 give the deal in the next week, you're probably gonna 0:06:50.720 --> 0:06:53.200 hear this one that's happening. I request that every single 0:06:53.240 --> 0:06:58.560 listener of Better Offline, I need you to actually boycott 0:06:58.600 --> 0:07:01.159 every single Vox property, which because the Verge has some 0:07:01.200 --> 0:07:05.240 great writers and also Neli Patel, and you should boycott 0:07:05.279 --> 0:07:08.760 everything that Fox is doing right now based on this anyway, 0:07:09.120 --> 0:07:11.840 which sucks because they just hired some really excellent reporter 0:07:11.880 --> 0:07:15.400 called hayden Field. She's excellent. The writers are the ones 0:07:15.440 --> 0:07:18.280 who are the victims here. The power structure of Vox 0:07:18.400 --> 0:07:21.200 is not giving them a fair deal. Solidarity with Vox, 0:07:21.280 --> 0:07:25.600 do not fucking click their websites unless that deal gets done. Anyway, 0:07:25.640 --> 0:07:28.880 moving on, one of my favorite things that really fucking 0:07:28.920 --> 0:07:31.200 pissed me off was quite ac quitting it. It was 0:07:31.240 --> 0:07:33.960 something that they've berated people for in twenty twenty two. 0:07:34.000 --> 0:07:36.200 And is this gas the euphemism for doing the job 0:07:36.200 --> 0:07:40.040 as specified in your employment agreement. Because journalism is enthralled 0:07:40.040 --> 0:07:42.200 by the management class, and because the management class has 0:07:42.240 --> 0:07:45.240 so thoroughly rewritten the concept of what labor means, the 0:07:45.280 --> 0:07:50.120 people got called lazy for doing their jobs. And this 0:07:50.280 --> 0:07:53.119 is because the middle manager brain doesn't see a worker 0:07:53.120 --> 0:07:55.280 as somebody hired and paid for a job, but as 0:07:55.320 --> 0:07:57.440 a kind of an asset that must provide a return. 0:07:58.360 --> 0:08:00.520 As a result, if another asset comes long that could 0:08:00.520 --> 0:08:02.760 potentially provide a bigger return, like an offshore worker or 0:08:02.800 --> 0:08:06.520 a theoretical AI agent, that medal manager won't hesitate to 0:08:06.560 --> 0:08:09.320 start getting hot and heavy with the idea of getting 0:08:09.400 --> 0:08:12.400 rid of this annoying person who keeps doing the thing 0:08:12.440 --> 0:08:15.440 that the manager needs them to, but won't magically read 0:08:15.480 --> 0:08:19.080 the manager's mind, and also keeps asking the manager all 0:08:19.080 --> 0:08:21.840 these annoying questions. Leave the manager and learn to get paid. 0:08:22.680 --> 0:08:26.160 But really, though, our official intelligence is the ultimate paniseer 0:08:26.200 --> 0:08:28.720 of the business city, a tool that gives an impression 0:08:28.720 --> 0:08:31.600 of productivity with far more production than the business city 0:08:31.600 --> 0:08:34.840 it themselves because they don't really do any work. The 0:08:34.840 --> 0:08:38.320 Information reported recently that Service Now CEO Bill McDermott, the 0:08:38.360 --> 0:08:40.720 chief executive of a company with a market capitalization of 0:08:40.720 --> 0:08:43.320 over two hundred billion dollars. By the way, despite the 0:08:43.320 --> 0:08:45.600 fact that like Salesforce, nobody really knows what they do, 0:08:46.000 --> 0:08:49.080 he chose to bush Ai across his entire organization, both 0:08:49.080 --> 0:08:51.600 in the product and in practice in the organization itself, 0:08:51.600 --> 0:08:55.360 based on the mental consideration I would usually associate with 0:08:55.520 --> 0:08:58.760 a raven finding a shiny object. The following is an 0:08:58.800 --> 0:09:02.400 actual quote from the article HM. When chain GPT debuted 0:09:02.400 --> 0:09:05.240 in November twenty twenty, McDermott joined his executives around a 0:09:05.240 --> 0:09:07.880 boardroom table and they played with the chatbot together. From there, 0:09:07.880 --> 0:09:10.800 he made a quick decision, and this is a guy's voice. 0:09:10.880 --> 0:09:13.520 Bill's like, let me make it clear to everybody here. 0:09:13.640 --> 0:09:18.760 Everything you do Aiyi Hei Ai AI recalled sitson the 0:09:18.800 --> 0:09:22.360 Service Now Vice chair to begin a customer meeting on AI. 0:09:22.440 --> 0:09:24.640 Mcdommot has asked his salespeople to do what amounts to 0:09:24.679 --> 0:09:27.839 their best impression of him. Hi, I'm Bill McDermott. Ooh, 0:09:27.880 --> 0:09:30.600 I'm a fucking idiot. Anyway, present AI not as a 0:09:30.600 --> 0:09:33.440 matter of bots or databases, but in grand sounding terms 0:09:33.480 --> 0:09:37.280 like business transformation. During the push to grow AI, mcdommot 0:09:37.280 --> 0:09:40.520 has insisted these manager's improve efficiency across their teams. He's 0:09:40.559 --> 0:09:44.439 laser focused on the sales team's participation rate. Let's assume 0:09:44.440 --> 0:09:47.000 you're a manager and you have twelve direct reports, he said. Now, 0:09:47.080 --> 0:09:49.440 let's assume out of those twelve, two people did good, 0:09:49.559 --> 0:09:51.120 which it was so good that the manager was one 0:09:51.200 --> 0:09:53.880 hundred and ten percent of plan. I don't think that's good. 0:09:53.920 --> 0:09:55.640 I tell the manager what did the other ten do? 0:09:56.720 --> 0:09:59.080 You'll notice that all of this is complete nonsense. What 0:09:59.120 --> 0:10:01.240 do you mean, efficienc See what does that quote even mean? 0:10:01.360 --> 0:10:04.080 One hundred and ten percent of plan? What are you 0:10:04.160 --> 0:10:06.640 on about? Did you hit your head on something, Bill, 0:10:07.720 --> 0:10:10.880 did you like, do you have a gas leak in service? Now? 0:10:11.080 --> 0:10:13.960 I fucking swear these people make so much money, but 0:10:14.040 --> 0:10:18.520 when you hear them talk, they sound so stupid. They 0:10:18.559 --> 0:10:21.440 sound so very stupid. If you or I said stuff 0:10:21.520 --> 0:10:24.080 like that to someone, they check us for a concussion. 0:10:24.280 --> 0:10:27.440 But I'd wager that mister McDermot is concussion free. And 0:10:27.440 --> 0:10:30.120 then true example of a business idiot, a person with 0:10:30.160 --> 0:10:32.560 incredible power and wealth that makes decisions not based on 0:10:32.640 --> 0:10:35.040 knowing things or caring about his customers, but on the 0:10:35.120 --> 0:10:38.080 latest shiny object that makes him thing line go up. No, 0:10:38.240 --> 0:10:41.200 that's really Bill McDermott's thing. Back in twenty twenty two, 0:10:41.280 --> 0:10:43.520 he said to Yahoo Financed that the metaverse was real 0:10:43.559 --> 0:10:45.800 and that service Now could help someone create an emil 0:10:45.880 --> 0:10:49.600 in the metaverse and have a futuristic storefront of some sort. 0:10:50.240 --> 0:10:52.320 One might wonder how Service Now provided that, and the 0:10:52.320 --> 0:10:54.480 answer is it did not provide that at all. I 0:10:54.480 --> 0:10:57.680 cannot find a single product that it's offered that includes 0:10:57.840 --> 0:11:01.040 anything of the sort. But like any of these CEOs, 0:11:01.840 --> 0:11:04.600 he doesn't really know stuff or do stuff. He just 0:11:05.200 --> 0:11:08.560 is des can't asked. Motherfucker. The corporate equivalent of a 0:11:08.559 --> 0:11:10.600 stain on a carpet that nobody really knows how it 0:11:10.640 --> 0:11:12.199 got there, but hasn't been removed, and it's kind of 0:11:12.200 --> 0:11:14.360 difficult to get out without ripping the whole fucking thing up. 0:11:14.800 --> 0:11:17.079 The modern executive, like I have said, is symbolic, and 0:11:17.120 --> 0:11:19.240 the media has due to a large amount of business 0:11:19.240 --> 0:11:21.720 idiots running these outlets and middle managers stuffed into the 0:11:21.800 --> 0:11:25.480 editorial class, being trained to never ask different questions such as, 0:11:25.600 --> 0:11:27.959 what the fuck are you talking about, Bill, or even 0:11:28.040 --> 0:11:30.600 the simple what does that mean? Or how would you 0:11:30.640 --> 0:11:33.000 do that? Or I'm not sure I understand? Would you 0:11:33.040 --> 0:11:36.400 mind explaining? Perhaps the last part is the symptom of 0:11:36.440 --> 0:11:39.760 the overall problem. Though so many layers of editorial and 0:11:39.800 --> 0:11:42.720 managerial power are filled full of people that don't know anything, 0:11:42.760 --> 0:11:46.040 and there's never anyone crueler about ignorance than somebody who's 0:11:46.080 --> 0:11:50.160 ignorant themselves. We're still, in many fields, journalism included, we're 0:11:50.280 --> 0:11:53.199 rarely rewarded for knowing things or being right, being right 0:11:53.240 --> 0:11:54.720 in the way that keeps the people with the keys 0:11:54.720 --> 0:11:58.160 from scraping them across our cars. We are, however, rewarded 0:11:58.160 --> 0:12:00.560 for saying the right thing at the right time, which 0:12:00.600 --> 0:12:03.640 more often than not means resembling our white male superiors, 0:12:03.679 --> 0:12:05.920 speaking like our peers, and delivering results in the way 0:12:05.960 --> 0:12:21.079 that makes them feel the happiest or the best about themselves. Now. 0:12:21.120 --> 0:12:23.600 A great example of our vibeespace society was back in 0:12:23.600 --> 0:12:26.520 October twenty twenty one, where a Washington Post article written 0:12:26.520 --> 0:12:29.880 by two Harvard professors rallied against remote work by citing 0:12:29.880 --> 0:12:32.760 a Microsoft funded anti remote work study and quoting an 0:12:32.760 --> 0:12:35.640 one hundred and thirty year old economist called Alfred Marshall 0:12:35.679 --> 0:12:38.720 about how and I quote workers gather in dense clusters, 0:12:38.960 --> 0:12:41.720 ignoring the fact that Marshall was so racist that they've 0:12:41.720 --> 0:12:45.640 written academic papers about him, and also ignoring how excited 0:12:45.640 --> 0:12:47.520 he was about eugenics or the fact that he was 0:12:47.559 --> 0:12:52.400 writing about fucking factories. Remote work terrifies the business idiot 0:12:52.440 --> 0:12:54.600 because it removes the performative layer that allowed them to 0:12:54.600 --> 0:12:59.000 stomp around and feel important, reducing their work to work, 0:13:00.080 --> 0:13:04.240 you know, stuff they've done. Office culture is inherently heteronormative, 0:13:04.240 --> 0:13:06.160 and white and black women are less likely to be 0:13:06.160 --> 0:13:08.880 promoted by their managers, and continuing the existence of the 0:13:08.920 --> 0:13:11.440 office is all about making sure the business idiot continues 0:13:11.520 --> 0:13:14.920 railing supreme. Removing the ability for the MANAGERI or horn 0:13:14.960 --> 0:13:16.839 monitors to look at you and try and work out 0:13:16.880 --> 0:13:18.800 what you're doing without ever really helping is a big 0:13:18.880 --> 0:13:20.960 part of being a manager. And if for a manager 0:13:21.000 --> 0:13:22.960 hearing this and saying you don't do this, I challenge 0:13:23.000 --> 0:13:25.880 you to talk to another person that doesn't confirm your biases. 0:13:26.360 --> 0:13:29.600 The business idiot does reim supreme. Their existence holds up 0:13:29.640 --> 0:13:32.360 every public company almost and remote work was the first 0:13:32.360 --> 0:13:35.640 time they've willingly raised their heads and started honking angrily. 0:13:36.160 --> 0:13:39.000 Google demanded employees returned to the office in twenty twenty one, 0:13:39.040 --> 0:13:42.080 but let one executive work remotely from New Zealand because 0:13:42.160 --> 0:13:45.559 absolutely none of the decision making was done with people 0:13:45.760 --> 0:13:49.200 that actually do work. In mind, while we can, well 0:13:49.320 --> 0:13:52.760 you can, I'm not interested debate whether exclusively working remote 0:13:52.800 --> 0:13:55.080 is productive or not. The return to office push was 0:13:55.160 --> 0:13:58.640 almost entirely done in two ways, one executive's demanding people 0:13:58.720 --> 0:14:01.920 return to the office, two journalists asking executives if remote 0:14:01.920 --> 0:14:05.280 work was good or not, entirely ignoring the people that 0:14:05.360 --> 0:14:08.839 do the work and mostly not seeing if it was good, 0:14:08.920 --> 0:14:12.480 and mostly just asking whether it was bad and how 0:14:12.520 --> 0:14:16.079 bad it was, asking managers. This guy called Callum Boucher's 0:14:16.120 --> 0:14:18.960 over the Wall Street Journal, and he has written some 0:14:19.120 --> 0:14:22.360 real scorches, Borcher scorches, if you call them, by which 0:14:22.400 --> 0:14:26.480 I mean, I've never seen someone so interested in publishing 0:14:26.480 --> 0:14:29.200 what bosses think in my fucking life. And I run 0:14:29.240 --> 0:14:32.120 a PR firm that should tell you everything. But The 0:14:32.120 --> 0:14:34.200 New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, 0:14:34.240 --> 0:14:36.200 and many many other outlets all fell for this crap 0:14:36.240 --> 0:14:38.880 because the business idiots have captured our media too, training 0:14:38.920 --> 0:14:42.200 even talented journalists to dever to power every term. When 0:14:42.200 --> 0:14:44.640 every power structure is stuff full of do nothing management 0:14:44.720 --> 0:14:46.560 types that have learned exactly as little as they need 0:14:46.600 --> 0:14:49.560 to get by, it's inevitable that journalism will cater to 0:14:49.640 --> 0:14:54.160 them specious, thoughtless reproductions of the powerful sideas Look at 0:14:54.160 --> 0:14:57.440 the coverage of AI or the metaverse or cryptocurrency or clubhouse. 0:14:57.800 --> 0:15:00.840 Look how willingly reporters will willingly accept narratives not based 0:15:00.840 --> 0:15:03.280 on practical experience or what the technology can do, but 0:15:03.360 --> 0:15:05.720 what the powerful and the popular as suddenly interested in. 0:15:06.400 --> 0:15:08.920 Every single tech bubble has followed the same path, and 0:15:08.960 --> 0:15:12.440 that path was paved with flawed, deferential and specious journalism 0:15:12.520 --> 0:15:15.640 from small blogs to the biggest mast heads. Look at 0:15:15.640 --> 0:15:18.400 how reporters talk to executives, not just the way they 0:15:18.400 --> 0:15:21.360 ask things like Neeli Ptel's hundred plus word questions to 0:15:21.360 --> 0:15:25.239 send off as shy, or his interview with fucking Gary Vaynerchuk, 0:15:25.560 --> 0:15:29.160 the constant scam artist who has an FT thing. NELI, 0:15:29.200 --> 0:15:32.880 what the pardon me? Pardon me? Let me take this 0:15:32.920 --> 0:15:35.640 from the top. If you look at how reporters talk 0:15:35.720 --> 0:15:38.600 to executives, you should look not just at the way 0:15:38.640 --> 0:15:40.480 they ask things, but the things they accept them saying, 0:15:40.520 --> 0:15:43.040 and the willingness they have to just accept what they're told. 0:15:43.360 --> 0:15:45.280 Sach An Adela is the CEO of a company with 0:15:45.320 --> 0:15:48.280 a market capitalization of over three trillion dollars that's Microsoft, 0:15:48.320 --> 0:15:50.400 by the way, and, according to an interview mentioned in 0:15:50.400 --> 0:15:53.680 the last episode, uses AI to summarize podcast episodes and 0:15:53.720 --> 0:15:56.520 digest emails and effectively do all the obvious parts of 0:15:56.520 --> 0:15:59.800 his daily working life. I have no idea how you 0:15:59.840 --> 0:16:02.800 are a reporter. Do not say, Satcha, what the fuck 0:16:03.120 --> 0:16:06.680 you're outsourcing most of your life degenerate ive AI, that's insane, 0:16:06.800 --> 0:16:09.520 or even do you actually do that? And then asking 0:16:09.560 --> 0:16:12.280 further questions but that would get you in trouble. And 0:16:12.320 --> 0:16:15.360 the editorial class is the managerial class now, and it's 0:16:15.400 --> 0:16:18.520 spent decades mentoring young reporters and teaching them how not 0:16:18.640 --> 0:16:21.040 to ask questions, how not to push back, and to 0:16:21.080 --> 0:16:24.320 believe that a big, strong, powerful CEO would never mislead them. 0:16:25.080 --> 0:16:27.880 Karas wish as half asked interviews are considered daring and 0:16:27.960 --> 0:16:31.760 critical because journalism has at large lost its teeth, breeding 0:16:31.800 --> 0:16:34.400 reporters rewarded for knowing a little bit about a few things, 0:16:34.480 --> 0:16:36.800 and punishing those who ask too many questions or refuse 0:16:36.880 --> 0:16:39.240 to fall in line. The reason that they don't want 0:16:39.240 --> 0:16:41.360 you to ask these questions is that the business idiot 0:16:41.400 --> 0:16:45.040 isn't big on answers. Editors that tell you to not 0:16:45.080 --> 0:16:47.160 push too hard at doing so because they know the 0:16:47.200 --> 0:16:49.800 executive one have an answer, or they themselves don't know 0:16:49.840 --> 0:16:52.680 fucking anything. It isn't just about the pr person that 0:16:52.720 --> 0:16:54.480 trained them, but the fact that these men more often 0:16:54.520 --> 0:16:56.560 than not do not have a glancing understanding of their 0:16:56.640 --> 0:17:00.320 underlying business or even the things they're saying. Yeah, in 0:17:00.320 --> 0:17:03.080 the same way that business idiots penetrated every other part 0:17:03.120 --> 0:17:06.159 of society, they eventually have found their way to journalism. 0:17:06.760 --> 0:17:09.840 While we can and should scream at the disconnected idiots 0:17:09.880 --> 0:17:13.560 that ran vice into the ground, the problem is everywhere 0:17:13.920 --> 0:17:15.960 because the business idiots aren't just at the top, but 0:17:16.040 --> 0:17:19.840 infecting the power structures underlying every newsroom. While there are 0:17:20.080 --> 0:17:22.520 some really great editors, there are plenty more that barely 0:17:22.560 --> 0:17:25.280 understand the articles they edit, the stories they commission, or 0:17:25.280 --> 0:17:28.879 that make reportersable punches for fear of advertiser blowback, or 0:17:28.920 --> 0:17:31.960 worse still, just worried they'll get attacked on social media. 0:17:32.320 --> 0:17:36.840 Fucking cowards. Go hide under your table, you fucking coward. 0:17:37.000 --> 0:17:40.040 That and mentorship is dead across effectively or parts of society, 0:17:40.280 --> 0:17:42.560 meaning that most reporters, as with many jobs, learned by 0:17:42.560 --> 0:17:44.280 watching each other, which means they all make sure to 0:17:44.320 --> 0:17:46.879 not ask the rough questions and not push back too 0:17:46.920 --> 0:17:49.640 hard against the party or market or company messaging until 0:17:49.760 --> 0:17:53.639 everybody else is doing it. And under these conditions business 0:17:53.680 --> 0:17:58.040 idiots thrive. The business idiot's reign is one of speciousness 0:17:58.040 --> 0:18:01.760 and shortcuts, of acquisition, of dominance, and of theft. Mentoring 0:18:01.760 --> 0:18:04.000 people is something you do to pass on knowledge. It 0:18:04.040 --> 0:18:06.000 may make them grateful to you, but it ultimately in 0:18:06.040 --> 0:18:08.000 the mind of a business that it creates a competitor 0:18:08.080 --> 0:18:11.400 or arrival. Investing in talent or worker conditions, or even 0:18:11.440 --> 0:18:13.520 really work itself would require you to know what you're 0:18:13.560 --> 0:18:16.480 talking about or actually do work, which doesn't really make 0:18:16.520 --> 0:18:19.080 sense when you're talking to a work who should be 0:18:19.080 --> 0:18:21.639 doing it for you, and they're the ones that are 0:18:21.640 --> 0:18:23.880 meant to work, right, you're there to manage them. Yeah, 0:18:23.880 --> 0:18:26.800 they keep talking back, asking questions about the work you 0:18:26.800 --> 0:18:28.439 wanted to do. I ask you need to step in 0:18:28.560 --> 0:18:32.480 and help on something. And that's so annoy you. Oh, 0:18:32.520 --> 0:18:36.120 I'm a manager. I'm not here to non sir, I'm 0:18:36.119 --> 0:18:39.000 a blog here. I'm not here to do work. Just 0:18:39.119 --> 0:18:41.560 know the stuff, do the stuff. I have to go 0:18:41.600 --> 0:18:43.120 get lunch, and then I have to go back out 0:18:43.119 --> 0:18:47.000 because I have another lunch. Okay enough, Oh my god, 0:18:47.040 --> 0:18:49.119 you want another thing. Why haven't you done the thing? 0:18:49.119 --> 0:18:51.919 I didn't tell you yet. Anyway, I believe that this 0:18:52.040 --> 0:18:54.520 is the predominant mindset across most of the powerful, to 0:18:54.560 --> 0:18:57.040 the point that everything in the world is constructed to 0:18:57.080 --> 0:18:59.920 reaffirm their beliefs rather than follow any kind of logical path. 0:19:00.440 --> 0:19:03.760 Our stock market is inherently illogical, driven not by whether 0:19:03.800 --> 0:19:05.399 a company is good or is bad, but whether it 0:19:05.440 --> 0:19:09.200 can show growth even if said growth is horrifically unprofitable 0:19:09.240 --> 0:19:12.200 or ultimately unsustainable. I'd argue it's because the market has 0:19:12.200 --> 0:19:15.359 no idea how to make intelligent decisions, just complex ones 0:19:15.359 --> 0:19:17.600 that mean you don't really have to understand the business 0:19:17.760 --> 0:19:19.920 so much as you have to understand the associated vibes 0:19:19.960 --> 0:19:22.480 of the industry and the weird black magic of how 0:19:22.520 --> 0:19:26.560 hedge funds work. Freedman's influence and Reagan's policies have allowed 0:19:26.560 --> 0:19:29.240 our markets to be dominated by business idiocy, where a 0:19:29.240 --> 0:19:31.919 bad company can be a good stock because everybody, specifically 0:19:31.920 --> 0:19:34.120 other traders and the business press likes how it looks 0:19:34.119 --> 0:19:36.800 and smells, which allows the business idiots to continue making 0:19:36.840 --> 0:19:40.159 profit using illogical and partially rigged market making, with the 0:19:40.200 --> 0:19:43.520 business press helpfully pushing up their narratives. This also keeps 0:19:43.560 --> 0:19:46.680 regular people from accumulating too much wealth. If regular people 0:19:46.680 --> 0:19:48.879 could set the tone for the markets as a company 0:19:48.920 --> 0:19:51.000 that makes something people like and people pay them for it, 0:19:51.000 --> 0:19:53.240 and they make more money than they spend, that may 0:19:53.600 --> 0:19:56.480 make things a little too even. It would make things 0:19:56.560 --> 0:19:59.400 too accessible. Why would you hire a hedge one where 0:19:59.400 --> 0:20:02.360 you could just follow a common sense No, no, no, 0:20:02.800 --> 0:20:06.199 that's not how we run our markets here, sir. It 0:20:06.200 --> 0:20:08.160 doesn't matter that core Weave, a company that went from 0:20:08.160 --> 0:20:10.960 mining crypto to taking on multi billion dollar contracts to 0:20:11.000 --> 0:20:13.760 provide compute for open AI and other companies, quite literally 0:20:13.800 --> 0:20:16.159 does not have enough money for its capital expenditures and 0:20:16.240 --> 0:20:18.560 lost over three hundred million dollars in the last quarter. 0:20:18.640 --> 0:20:20.520