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Technology's daily show (formerly the Technology Brothers Podcast). Streaming live on X and YouTube from 11 - 2 PM PST Monday - Friday. Available on X, Apple, Spotify, and YouTube.
You're watching TPPN. You know what else is the gift that keeps on giving? Hiring a storyteller, which apparently is the is the hottest topic in Silicon Valley. Thanks to our friend, Katie Dayton, over at The Wall Street Journal, who made this go mega viral by posting an article in The Wall Street Journal all about how startups are hiring storytellers. Companies are desperately seeking storytellers is the headline, of course.
Speaker 1:We are going to dive into it. Jordy wrote a take. Storytelling is the only way to impose meaning on abundance, says Signal. Coherence on noise, legitimacy on power, strategy ops, capital are all downstream without narrative control. None of it will ever stick.
Speaker 1:This has been one of the core premise of my account in a world of infinite output. Story is the scarce primitive. Whoever can compress chaos into something people can feel, remember, forgive, and rally around actually runs the system. This skill is worth more than the entire c suite combined. Okay.
Speaker 1:Woah. So lay off the CEO, the CFO, the CTO. You just need a storyteller. You're good to go. No.
Speaker 1:People are having fun with this one. What was your take, Jordy? Break it down for me.
Speaker 2:So I How do frame this?
Speaker 1:How do you process this?
Speaker 2:I mean, should we should we read through the article briefly or at least summarize
Speaker 1:it? Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2:For sure. So Katie writes, companies are desperately seeking storytellers. Brands trying to wrest great greater control from their narratives are seeking storytelling skill sets Mhmm. Without a camp campfire in sight. Maybe some of them have warm hearth like we do.
Speaker 2:Anyways, corporate America's
Speaker 1:What is the latest
Speaker 2:What is Normally, you'd be telling a story
Speaker 1:Oh, around a Yeah. That makes sense. Fire.
Speaker 2:Can't be telling a story that way.
Speaker 1:I usually think of smoking cigars around campfires. That's what I associate. Mostly focused on the cigar.
Speaker 2:But you like to yap between puffs.
Speaker 1:I do.
Speaker 2:I do. Corporate America's latest hot job is also one of the oldest in history, storytellers. Some companies want a media relations manager by a flashier name. Others need people to produce podcasts, case studies, and more types of branded content to attract customers, investors, and potential recruits. All seem to use the word differently than in its usual application to novelist playwrights.
Speaker 2:As storytellers, a Google job ad said last month, we play an integral role in driving customer acquisition and long term growth. Mhmm. The listings had a customer storytelling manager to join the company's Google Cloud storytelling team. That sounds like a fantastic opportunity in another life. Personally, I'd be on the Google Cloud storytelling team.
Speaker 2:For sure. In some ways in some ways, we are. One article the unit published this year was titled Lowe's innovation, how Vertex AI helps create interactive shopping experiences. Microsoft Security Organization meanwhile is recruiting a senior director overseeing narrative and storytelling described as part cybersecurity technologist, part communicator, and part marketer. Sure.
Speaker 2:Vanta is also hiring a storyteller. Notion Storytelling. Productivity apps, Notion recently merged its com, social media, and influencer functions into one ten person team, a so called storytelling team. Katie goes on and on. She talks about how more and more of these listings are popping up.
Speaker 2:Yeah. They're growing year over year. They're showing up in earnings calls. Yeah. And I
Speaker 1:I went to try to find have a different take on this. I think as soon as as soon as there's a Wall Street I mean, we love Katie, but as soon as there's a Wall Street Journal piece about a trend, the trend is effectively dead. And so there is no more alpha in hiring storytellers. You need to hire a yarn spinner. You need to hire a fabulist, someone who will go around to group chats and tell wild lies about your product, your company, how successful you are.
Speaker 1:You recruit this person and then they go around seeding little little anecdotes, little tall tales, and they spin yarns.
Speaker 2:I mean, that's called securities fraud.
Speaker 1:I don't know. It certainly depends. Maybe if there's no securities changing hands.
Speaker 2:I tried to find a storyteller from a long time ago. Okay. And I found none other than the legend Steve Clayton, currently vice president of Microsoft's communication strategy. But back in 2010, what was he hired for? The chief storyteller
Speaker 1:No way. Of Microsoft. Using that term fifteen years ago. That title. Feels like a very modern
Speaker 2:that title from 2010 to June 2021. I was trying to also kind of understand the from like the early nineteen hundreds to the nineteen fifties, you had copywriters. Like that it was it was like pretty elite to be a copywriter. Yep. This was like a high status job.
Speaker 2:You were using
Speaker 1:Don Draper. Isn't Don Draper director
Speaker 2:but also a writer Yeah. And the people that he worked with were copywriters. Because at that time, print media being able to use your words to get people to take action
Speaker 1:Mhmm.
Speaker 2:That you want, that you benefit from, is a very elite skill set.
Speaker 1:One more example that I mentioned earlier, early storytellers in Silicon Valley. Guy Kawasaki, He was he was one of Apple's employees originally responsible for marketing their Macintosh computer line in 1984. He actually popularized the word evangelist in marketing the Macintosh as an Apple evangelist. And the concepts of evangelism marketing and technology evangelism slash platforming evangelism in general. And and and he became, you know, this this idea of, like, word-of-mouth marketing, not quite storytelling, different different keyword around it, but he was also sort of, you know, one of the early, you know, turning points in in tech marketing.
Speaker 2:Anyway, continue. Yeah. Around that time, you started to get content strategists. Right? Yeah.
Speaker 2:And and if you look back to the to the eighties and nineties, it was about if that was kind of like the boom of brand strategy, brand identity. Think like the Nike Yeah. Kind of era of marketing.
Speaker 1:Embology recently went viral because there was a clip from an older podcast that was reposted on Axe, went viral. And it was his take a few years ago during the creator economy boom arguing that companies need a founding creator or like a or like a Creator
Speaker 2:in residence.
Speaker 1:Create you know, it it was it was higher than creator in residence. It was like it was like on the co founding team, you should have a CTO and then you should have a creator. But it went viral and everyone was saying like, this is so it's he's so behind. And I was and I had to correct someone. Was like, no.
Speaker 1:No. No. Like, that clip is actually a couple years old. He when he was saying it, it wasn't. So it's it's sort of interesting that way.
Speaker 2:Any Early insight. Yeah. I wrote a piece for the newsletter today at tbpn.com. And, of course, I titled it, You Don't Need a Storyteller. I said according to a friend of the show, Katie
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:At The Wall Street Journal, companies are desperate to hire storytellers. Hiring a storyteller is not a new phenomenon, but it makes sense that companies feel the need to hire them right now. Why? Because it's never been more obvious that the best storytellers in the world create billions of dollars of value for their companies and create massive advantages using only their words. Their words are so powerful that no matter where they appear on the Internet, they draw millions of views and create a vortex of talent, capital, and customers.
Speaker 1:Yeah. But yeah. There's this thing where like, if you have a hot take, you don't actually need to own the platform. You can just go do a circuit
Speaker 2:of appearances. A podcast tour. I'll continue. So the reality distortion field that emergence emerges often results in a 100 x PE ratios. Of course, every company in the world wants this.
Speaker 2:The problem is that it's impossible to hire the most elite storytellers because they are founders. Think Elon, Karp, and Palmer. Yeah. New coinage alert. I call these types Joe Rogan CEOs.
Speaker 2:I love it. Right? You know if you have a Joe Rogan CEO. It's fine if you don't. There's great CEOs that are not Joe Rogan CEOs Yep.
Speaker 2:But there's a certain type of CEO that's a Joe Rogan CEO.
Speaker 1:And to to be clear, you're not saying that the that the CEO has to have the same aesthetics as Joe Rogan or the same style Well,
Speaker 2:even Carr has not been on Joe Rogan.
Speaker 1:That's true.
Speaker 2:But you know that if he went on You would crush. It it would be a it would be a Electric grand slam. It'd electric. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Yeah. No. No. So so it's more about being able to put on a performance in that particular environment.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Can you
Speaker 2:capture people's attention for three hours? Yes. Just like Yes. Rambling, basically.
Speaker 1:Whereas there there have been CEOs that have gone on Joe Rogan successfully, but they just haven't delivered a Joe Rogan experience.
Speaker 2:And I think if you think about I think if you think about, like, early stage founders
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Who who would who would go on and just crush Joe Rogan Gus is true. Augustus. Yeah. Yeah. Just, like, immediately comes to mind.
Speaker 2:You know who these people are, and there's there's CEOs, founder CEOs Yeah. Of his generation
Speaker 1:He's a JRC.
Speaker 2:That are amazing even though they wouldn't necessarily they're not necessarily a JRC.
Speaker 1:She's a JRC?
Speaker 2:So I continue the Internet is noisier than ever with thousands of startups competing for mindshare. When every startup has a great launch video, no one does. And yet these storytellers consistently break through and dominate the timeline. Even though Gen AI allows marketing teams big and small to massively increase their output, it is often not even 1% as effective as one of these elite storyteller founders going on a podcast or just posting stream of consciousness on x. The white pill for savvy marketing teams is that even as we're seeing an exponential increase in content production, I'm not sure we're seeing an exponential increase in great ideas.
Speaker 2:That means that companies large and small that don't have the luxury of having an Elon or Palmer on the payroll still have a chance to break through the noise and be remembered. As I was personally reflecting on 2025, there were only a handful of, like, truly corporate storytelling moments that I remember, and each of them worked for different reasons. One, don't work at Anderil. Mhmm. Iconic campaign.
Speaker 2:Palmer makes, like, a cameo in it, but he's not the star. He's just like a he's he's like a kind of he's just like a character in it, but it's you could remove Palmer, and the and the ad would, like, still carry weight. I thought that was, one of the best campaigns of the year. The other one was Astronomer, their reaction to the to the crisis and the viral moment they had. The the campaign is titled, thank you for your interest in Astronomer.
Speaker 2:It obviously featured Gwyneth Paltrow. I think this one will be studied in ten years. It was, like, really a perfect reaction to that moment, and I did not know Astronomer before then. I do now. I will never forget them.
Speaker 2:I thought ramps, expenses should do themselves with Saquon. That one was this combination of, like, luck, incredible execution, and timing. And and ultimately, it it just like having the Eagles got it done Yeah. And that, like, was just the cherry on top. It was a great campaign.
Speaker 2:It was a great, you know, first Super Bowl commercial for them. And then finally, Avi Schiffman's campaign, which I call buy every billboard. He literally bought every billboard. Friend did something absurd, which we can call the buy every billboard strategy. Many people criticize the campaign and the product, but the results from an awareness standpoint are undeniable.
Speaker 2:Avi spent 1 to 2,000,000 was my estimate and became a household name, at least on the coast. And a lot of other brands have spent, like, 10 times that amount. Yeah. And you don't even know who they are. I think, like, it's very possible that billboards can have increasing returns to scale.
Speaker 2:So you might buy Yep. Two billboards, not really see any noticeable, like, lift in awareness and attention and and traffic. But if you buy, like, 200 Yeah. It's sort of undeniable. You can't miss it.
Speaker 2:When he came on
Speaker 1:the show and was like, it's the biggest billboard campaign in history, I was like, there's no way. And then I saw it everywhere and I was like, okay, maybe it is.
Speaker 2:Anyways, I said hiring a storyteller to craft narratives and tell your story internally and externally is fine. But if the goal is to be remembered and you lack a Joe Rogan CEO, remember that one great campaign is worth 10,000 posts. Yeah. I would just like to see companies instead of, you know, frantically just trying to make a a lot of noise in a bunch of random ways as you go into 2026. How do you have one breakout moment campaign, and truly be remembered?
Speaker 1:I'm trying to square, like, the problem that these job posts are trying to solve. So in The Wall Street Journal article, it says the percentage of LinkedIn job postings in The US that include the term storyteller doubled in the year ending November 26, I guess, to include some 50,000 listings under marketing and more than 20,000 job listings under media and communications that mentioned the term storyteller storytelling. Clearly, people are business leaders are interested in storytelling both as a narrative for investors, but also as an actual physical job. But I'm wondering, like, you get in the seat. It does feel like a little bit of what this this journal article is saying is like is like, you're going to be storytelling every single day.
Speaker 1:It's kind of counter to what which I guess is what your whole point was, but it's very much counter to your point of, like, one big campaign, one breakthrough idea. I don't know. Is there is there a world where you need both, where you need inspiration, but you still need, like, you know, at a certain at a certain point you know, there there was an example here. It's like, you know, they did a Lowe's case study on how Vertex AI helps create interactive shopping experiences. Like,
Speaker 2:is that going be the the the standout moment Yeah. For me this year from Microsoft was Satya saying
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I'm happy to be a leaser. Yeah. And I'm good for my I'm good for my 80,000,000,000. Yeah. So when you think about when I you know, I I think What
Speaker 1:does that do for Lowe's partnership? You know? This was actually Google's cloud storytelling team. They published an article. And so if they just have to get out a blog post, maybe there is some benefit to just, like, shifting their mindset to at least being like, hey.
Speaker 1:Instead of just doing, a list of facts, like, why don't you try and, like, tell it like a story? Meaning, like, three act structure, conflict, resolution, characters, antagonists. Like, you know, like, because, like, a lot of like, you it sounds like a low bar.
Speaker 2:They didn't want Lowe's to have efficient cloud infrastructure.
Speaker 1:They didn't want the the shopping experiences to be interactive. But then Google came in and changed it up and changed up the game.
Speaker 2:You know, if I'm at a big company, if I'm employee at a big company, it would be cool to have a re like a centralized resource that's like, here's how we talk about this product. Here's how we talk about our mission. Here's how we talked about talk about our road map in the near term and the medium term and the long term. Right? But ultimately, when you think of the companies that are great at storytelling
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:It is because the CEO is a great storyteller. I would argue that Apple, who's historically been an amazing storyteller, not currently an incredible storyteller because Tim Cook is like 11 out of 10 operationally. Mhmm. And he's not the guy to go on. I I I don't see Tim Cook popping up on a bunch of
Speaker 1:They're all $100. Paying him enough to go do extra stuff. Like, if, you know, if I if you if you're making that type of money, like, you're not gonna be like, yeah, I'm gonna go work on the weekends.
Speaker 2:You're gonna 05:00 rolls around. Exactly. You're bailing. You're bailing. It hasn't matter.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Like, he's told the story through the company's performance Yeah. Which is that he is one of the most elite operators Yeah.
Speaker 1:Last business night history. Night, I feel like we had dinner with a great storyteller. And he told us his entire life story. And what was interesting and why I thought it was a really great story was two things. Like, one, the facts of the story, just the truth, was a lot of up and down,
Speaker 2:a lot of conflict. Yeah. It was riveting.
Speaker 1:It was riveting.
Speaker 2:Failure. Wins.
Speaker 1:He's the protagonist, but there were antagonists. And there were and there were mentors and trials and tribulations. Like, it really did fit the hero's journey. So so the facts were there, and you could go fact check them and be like, oh, yeah. Maybe there were.
Speaker 1:There were these story points. But then also, the way he told the story didn't hide those. There was an there's another version of that story where he only tells you the good moments in the story, and he doesn't tell you about any of the trial and tribulations. And we're like, okay. Yeah.
Speaker 1:We get it. You're successful. You know, it's boring. Instead, we were like, woah. Like, another another downturn, another up, another swing.
Speaker 1:It was emotional. It was a roller coaster. It was a great story. If if there if there's anything that comes out of, like, the storyteller era of corporate marketing, it should be giving marketers, writers, storytellers permission to actually inject conflict into their marketing materials.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Look at the way Palmer responded to that journal piece about how Anderol had a fire at one of their test sites. Mhmm. Right? He was, like, paraphrasing, but it was effectively, yes, we had a fire at the at the missile test site or whatever it was, at the explosives test site.
Speaker 2:Right? Like, yes, we and he was trying to do that he was trying to do that in the journal article when you're clearly when he was talking to them, but they they pulled out moments where it was like, we fail a lot. Yeah. Whereas Palmer was trying to tell a good story, which is like, yeah, we fail a lot because we test a lot. Yeah.
Speaker 2:And we're trying to iterate faster than our competitors. Yeah. And through that, we'll succeed. I think tech needs to fall, like, fall in love with advertising again. Advertising is amazing.
Speaker 2:Like, I wanna see companies hiring advertising specialist. I think this gets lost because we're in this era of rapid testing, iterating through a bunch of assets, you know, volume.
Speaker 1:So so do you think do you think it's gonna be hard for companies to hire great storytellers? The Venn diagram of people who get tech, get people, can explain complex things simply, and can make people care is tiny.
Speaker 2:It's easier to be a great storyteller if you have motion than if you have aura.
Speaker 1:It is. Tech bro obsessed with storytelling but hasn't read a book in the last five years.
Speaker 2:Instead of a launch video, somebody should just write an announcement in the full hero's journey.
Speaker 1:That actually sort of works. I mean, I would I would I would use the story circle when I would write YouTube videos. It's basically like a three act structure, but in eight parts. There's a clue, Eric Zaworski says, there's a big clue in the middle of the viral Wall Street Journal article by Dolly Dighton that explains why the people who would otherwise crush the role of storyteller, the hot new job at hot start ups, rarely get the gig in the end. As designer Stefan Sagmeister observed back in 2014, it's all the people who are not storytellers who now suddenly want to be storytellers.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I just I just think a a title like this I I think a good a good test if you're trying to hire for a role like this is would the person be do they want the title storyteller
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Or would they be okay with the title copywriter? Because in my view, if you're hiring somebody to be a storyteller, their job is to, like, write down words
Speaker 1:Mhmm.
Speaker 2:In a structured Mhmm. Impactful way and help the entire organization, like, share those words in a in a in a consistent manner. A lot of people, like, want the title creative director, but do they wanna be a project manager? Like, no. They wanna be a creative director.
Speaker 2:Right? Yeah. There's just like a status associated with that. Yeah. There's maybe a status associated with storyteller.
Speaker 2:Yeah. But at the end of the day, if you're trying to hire for this, do you want somebody that is obsessed with Yeah. Writing?
Speaker 1:You should be willing to take the job of storyteller. If I come to you and you say you wanna work for me as a storyteller, I say, I'm gonna start you off with the
Speaker 2:title
Speaker 1:Fabolist. And if you're cool with that, then maybe we'll upgrade you to storyteller. ChatGPT has a new image model. They just launched this. Sam Altman teased it with a photo that Woah.
Speaker 1:At this point, you know, him and a bunch of Jesus. Him and a bunch polos. What is the actual announcement? How is this how is this framed? I know I know the model got better
Speaker 2:Alf.
Speaker 1:But what if Alf. Fell.
Speaker 2:It's a good model, sir.
Speaker 1:Today, we're releasing a new version of ChatGPT images powered by our new flagship image generation model. Now, whether you're creating something from scratch or editing a photo, you'll get the output you're picturing. It makes precise edits while keeping details intact, and it's four times faster. You know that's a big deal.
Speaker 2:There's a Soar video from Ramp Capital. Let's pull it up. Impressive. Oh. Very nice.
Speaker 1:That's pretty funny. I like it.
Speaker 2:Now let's see more slop.
Speaker 1:Oh my god. The the the ability to use Sora to make jokes at Sam's expense is truly new territory for I mean, I guess there were probably people that were in MS Paint making fun of Bill Gates. So these transformations work on both simple and more intricate concepts and are easy to, try using preset styles and ideas in the new ChatGPT images feature. No written prompt, required. In an in an effort to make it easier to prompt, we are now instantiating more UI.
Speaker 1:So as that image shows you
Speaker 2:As the models get better, we need more SaaS.
Speaker 1:With this, it feels like OpenAI and the ChatGPT app are definitely embracing this idea that you will need to bring a little bit of idea generation.
Speaker 2:OpenAI hires an executive from Google to lead m and a. OpenAI hire comms chief Hannah Wong is departing the company.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:This came out yesterday. She's stepping down. She's gonna depart the company at the January. Duong was the AI Giants first chief comms officer and guided the company through the launch of ChatGPT. Mhmm.
Speaker 2:Heightened regulatory scrutiny controversies and a slew of deals and lawsuits. The bigger picture, departure comes as the company is pushing on a variety of fronts.
Speaker 1:Do you think that she asked for the storyteller title and she didn't get it so she quit and protest?
Speaker 2:Very very possibly. It's possible. It's very possible. Yeah. I feel like she deserves she deserves, like, a a little bit of a of a vacation at this point.
Speaker 2:I can't I can't think I can't think of a more stressful job since 2021.
Speaker 1:Some gray hair. There is a fantastic article in the Wall Street Journal. We gotta go through it. Advertisers start Christmas season early. This was written for us.
Speaker 1:This is fantastic news. Brands chase inflation weary shoppers with plentiful TV spots. There's a whole bunch of interesting article interesting stats in here. Are you tired of Santas and relentlessly cheerful snowmen filling every screen? No.
Speaker 1:Blame the advertisers. Advertisers kicked off the holiday season even earlier this year, and they are inundating televisions with commercials. The activity comes despite continuing efforts by many businesses to rein in costs to contend with tariffs. Holiday TV ads started in earnest in early October, and companies have spent a combined $1,470,000,000 over the past nine weeks, a 13% jump compared with the year ago period. Guess how much holiday retail sales are expected to be this year?
Speaker 2:Is it?
Speaker 1:I'll give you a hint. In 2020, it was it was 700,000,000,000.0, 700,000,000,000. Then it went to 850,000,000,000, then 900, then $9.50. Last year came in around 99 something really close. What was it?
Speaker 1:It was 980,000,000,000.00, $980,000,000,000 this year. It's expected to be over 1,000,000,000,000. There are massive investments in digital promotions flooding social media, email inboxes, text messages. So, of course, the 1,470,000,000.00 that's happening on TV is just a small slice of the overall advertising that's happening this holiday season. Retailers spent $5,800,000,000 on digital ads in The U.
Speaker 1:S. From November 1 to November 7, a 4% increase from last year. Holiday shopping season remains a critical moment for retailers with inflation still weighing on household budgets, but brands aren't taking any chances of losing out on the action. The National Retail Federation is is projecting
Speaker 2:Let's give it up for the
Speaker 1:National Retail sales will surpass 1,000,000,000,000. A handful of retailers are proving particularly busy on the TV ad front so far. Walmart's ads feature a Doctor. Seuss inspired world starring Walter Goggins as the Grinch. Target, meanwhile, brings brass brings back Chris Kay, a jolly bearded Christmas enthusiast introduced in a 2024 campaign.
Speaker 1:In Target's spot, a woman who with whom he is on a coffee date gets a peek at his gift list, and it leaves him confused by referencing his his naughty list. Interesting. They polled consumers, how do you feel about the timing of holiday ads? When holiday ads start? So Amazon, one of the largest advertisers in the country, aired its first holiday TV ad on October 13.
Speaker 2:Okay. But you gotta you gotta give me more. Was Santa in the ad? I'm I'm kind of a purist. I like I like to go full speed ahead on on on the the Christmas spirit.
Speaker 1:Would you say that the Christmas ads are a, much too early, b, slightly too early, c, about the right time, slightly too late, or much too late?
Speaker 2:I think you can start doing holiday advertising without putting snow on the ground and without How
Speaker 1:would you do that? How wait. Describe a holiday ad that doesn't at least have a little bit of snow.
Speaker 2:I would like to see Amazon do a star a plain text ad that's Star Wars style where the text is just scrolling and it's like Scrolls. Get ready to buy stuff. This is about to be the Super Bowl of just buying stuff. Do it on amazon.com. Okay.
Speaker 2:It's time to buy.
Speaker 1:It's time to buy. Luca Capital is arguing that AI is not a bubble. He says real businesses are seeing real impact from AI. Coding and tech support help are the fur are are the two clear immediate role beneficiaries. Advertising is another clear beneficiary.
Speaker 1:Meta has talked about it in detail. Traditional boring companies like C. H. Robinson are pointing to AI and agentic workflows as making them more efficient. The market is responding quite rationally and scrutinizing these AI input companies diligently.
Speaker 1:See Broadcom and Oracle this past week. So that is the sign of yeah. I I agree with him. Like, the fact people are taking a victory lap dunking on Oracle. It's like, this is how the market should be working.
Speaker 1:Like, it it it it should it should sort of be like, okay. We're regarding this future RPO five years out with some skepticism. We're not gonna give you that much credit for it upfront. You gotta actually deliver some real value. You gotta get some cash flow into the business.
Speaker 1:Mag seven minus Tesla have reasonable valuations, and the hyperscalers have more demand than they can handle. He says, I've been vocal that indiscriminately gunning all AI input companies is a dumb thing to do, again, as Oracle Broadcom, Neo Clouds have shown this last week, but it doesn't mean AI is a bubble. I like it. I think it's a good a good take. Ford learns a brutal EV lesson.
Speaker 1:The carmaker takes a 19,500,000,000 write down on its electric vehicle business. And in this op ed, they say, not long ago, automakers were touting electric cars as a future. Well, now they are slamming the brakes hard on that future as market reality has hit them like a 16 wheeler. See Ford Motor's announcement Monday that it will take a $19,500,000,000 charge on its electric vehicle business instead of plowing, quote, instead of plowing billions into future into the future knowing these large EVs will never make money. We are pivoting, Ford CEO Jim Farley said, as he explained the company's plan to boost its lineup of gas powered cars and hybrids.
Speaker 1:Ford will also scrap its all electric f one fifty lightning pickup
Speaker 2:Full scrap.
Speaker 1:Has been full scrap. They're not gonna sell them anymore. So Ford has lost 13,000,000,000 on its EV business since 2023, with bigger losses expected in years to come. Last year, Ford lost about $50,000 for each EV sold. Wow.
Speaker 1:The truth is that the business case for EVs has always let rested largely on government subsidies and mandates. Now that is now that this combination of government favoritism and coercion is mostly going away, most carmakers have much less reason to make EVs.
Speaker 2:More breaking news. Kushner's affinity withdraws from Warner Bros.
Speaker 1:No way.
Speaker 2:Takeover battle.
Speaker 1:This is breaking news right now.
Speaker 2:Jared Kushner is exiting from the takeover battle. Affinity was helping to finance Paramount's bid for Warner Bros, but now believes the dynamics of an investment have changed since it became involved in the process. The battle for Warner Brothers stands to reshape the entertainment industry regardless of which bidder emerges victorious. With I I both bids Read
Speaker 1:between the lines, I think we know what happened. Jared Kushner, clearly a Foghorn Leghorn fan
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:With not enough Looney Tunes in the deal. Not enough I'm out.
Speaker 2:Pig. I'm out. Not enough Foghorn Leghorn. On that
Speaker 1:I said I'm out. I'm out. I'm out. I can't I can't support this.
Speaker 2:You can just do things. Go from Olympic snowboarder to head of cartel. Dollars 50,000,000 reward from FBI on your head. Life is short. Let it rip.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. Do not let it rip. I do not recommend becoming the head of a cartel.
Speaker 2:Maybe become the head of a 50,000,000 annual revenue business in a in a sort of legal domain.
Speaker 1:Enterprise software.
Speaker 2:Enterprise software. SaaS.
Speaker 1:Maybe databases.
Speaker 2:Let Life is short. Go from an Olympic snowboarder to a SaaS icon. Let it rip. Yep. Life is short.
Speaker 2:And we'll leave it at that.
Speaker 1:Have a good rest of your day. Merry Christmas.
Speaker 2:Thanks for hanging out with us We will
Speaker 1:see you tomorrow Friday. It does. When you put on the Santa suit.
Speaker 2:We will see you guys
Speaker 1:tomorrow. Tomorrow. Goodbye.