FRIDAY WRAP: Chesky’s AI friends, Gilead’s HIV shot, dual class Dolans, philanthropy washing, and a Giant Wiper

Introduction

IT’S FRIDAYYYYY!!! And we are LIVE, and ALIVE. This is Ari the Data Queen, joined by AnalystHole Matt Moscardi, Jessie the Money Whisperer, and Hazelnut Rallis. On today’s weekly wrap up: Tech CEOs know each other, Hawaii and New England are your only safe spaces, VCs are the new Godzilla, and a bunch of Giant Wipers

Story of the Week (DR):

1. The $7 billion Purdue bankruptcy plan giving the Sacklers immunity from more lawsuits gets nixed by Supreme Court

1. The Sackler family, which ran Purdue Pharma, agreed to provide up to $6 billion in funding in exchange for immunity from further legal action. But the court ruled 5-4 that bankruptcy law does not permit that kind of protection.

2. AI could kill creative jobs that ‘shouldn’t have been there in the first place,’ OpenAI’s CTO says DR

1. These are the people constructing our future?

2. The 'worst moment' of Sam Altman's OpenAI ousting happened just before midnight, Airbnb CEO said

1. But the hardest moment happened at midnight about two days in, according to an interview with Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky on CNBC.

2. "It was probably 48 hours in," Chesky said. "The board had led us to believe he was going to be reinstated, and right before midnight, we get information that Emmett Shear is now the CEO."

3. At that point, Chesky said Altman and OpenAI president Greg Brockman said they would go to Microsoft, and it felt like the page had turned. While Chesky said he wanted the two former executives to fight to stay, they were ready to leave if that was best for OpenAI and its employees.

4. "I thought that was the end of it," Chesky said. "The miraculous thing was, it turns out Emmett Shear is also a friend of mine and that opened a new line of communication."

3. Double dip from the Apology tour’s National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB):

1. Norfolk Southern interfered with the East Palestine train derailment probe, NTSB chair

2. Boeing ‘blatantly violated’ the NTSB’s 737 MAX investigations, gets sanctioned

4. An Elon Musk-backed Supreme Court ruling makes it harder to punish fraud

1. The court decided that the SEC can't use administrative law judges to decide disputes

2. The ruling limits the regulatory agency’s powers to issue fines. The court’s decision could also have far-reaching effects on the dozens of agencies that rely on such judges to decide legal disputes outside of the courts

Goodliest of the Week (AB):

1. Hawaii will decarbonize its transportation in 'groundbreaking' youth climate change settlement

2. Electric car battery charges in under five minutes in track test

3. Gilead Shot Provides Total Protection From HIV in Trial of Young African Women DR MM

4. Uber and Lyft will pay Massachusetts drivers a minimum $32.50 an hour—and give state $175 million—in settlement deal over wage violations

Assholiest of the Week (MM):

1. Data:

1. James Dolan: 60% influence

2. Other people named Dolan: 20% influence (there are 7)

3. Voting rights of class B shares held by people named Dolan: 10x

4. Daddy voting power: 35.5%

5. People named Dolan voting power: 64%

6. Headline: Madison Square Garden Entertainment Renews CEO James Dolan's Contract for Three More Years

1. With this headline: Vivek Ramaswamy meets with BuzzFeed CEO amid push for board seats

2. These are uninvestable companies - you’re an asshole if you write about them like normal companies, and Vivek is a DOUBLE asshole for founding Strive with the mission to destroy woke companies through shareholder rights and displace ISS and Glass Lewis while clearly not understanding the basic principles of dual class shares. 

3. You can cure yourself of assholeness for free though - go to https://www.freefloatanalytics.com

1. Look at the influence numbers of any company - if it’s greater than 50%, it’s basically fake public

2. Data DR

1. $290bn invested in the last 5 years by VCs

2. $143bn invested by corporates last year alone

3. Meanwhile, in 2023, non fertility women’s healthcare VC investments hit a record $435m

4. In 2023, black founders got $661m for everything

5. What we need is a black female founder that does women’s healthcare art using AI… 

6. Headline: AI could kill creative jobs that ‘shouldn’t have been there in the first place,’ OpenAI’s CTO says

1. VCs are fucking assholes of the assholiest, the absolute worst

2. So far, displacement looks like this:

1. AI CAN…

1. Make movies

2. Make digital paintings/art

3. Make music

4. Write

5. Add emotion to sporting events

2. AI CAN’T…

1. Take McDonald’s orders

2. Answer questions without hallucinating

3. Not be racist, sexist, ageist, or generally horrible

3. AI is the ultimate in theft - the only thing easy to steal is art and writing because it is made public by design.  Given there are zero creative, empathetic humans running AI companies and they’re all backed by VC hypergrowth AMP IT UP funding, it’s PRIMARY BUSINESS MODEL WILL REMAIN STEALING from humans, not assisting them

1. AI-generated Al Michaels to provide daily recaps during 2024 Summer Olympics 

3. Data:

1. $1.55 trillion dollars in assets

2. Average distributions in the form of grants - 7.7% since 2009

3. Average market rate of return - 10.5% in SP500 with dividends reinvested since 1971

4. Headline: Warren Buffett Gives Us a Preview of His Will

1. Asshole: philanthropy

2. It’s asset hoarding with another name - Buffett plans on leaving his fortune, subject to his own giving pledge, in a charitable foundation run by his kids

3. WTF is the point of the giving pledge again?  

4. Meanwhile, Mackenzie Scott has HERSELF DONATED $15BN

1. “In addition to whatever assets life has nurtured in me, I have a disproportionate amount of money to share. My approach to philanthropy will continue to be thoughtful. It will take time and effort and care. But I won’t wait. And I will keep at it until the safe is empty.”

Headline-iest (ALL):

1. MM: Boeing says its space mission is 'going well' despite its Starliner leaving 2 astronauts stuck on the ISS

2. MM: Slack’s AI is saving users 97 minutes a week. But its CEO worries they don’t know what to do with their extra time

3. DR: Boeing Says That the "Astronauts Are Not Stranded" While the Astronauts Remain Stranded

4. DR: The Cybertruck faces another setback as it recalls more than 11,000 vehicles over its giant wiper DR MM

Exhausting-est of the Week (JS):

Who Won the Week?

1. DR: people who live in Massachusetts (specifically Lyft/Uber drivers and Celtics fans)

2. AB: 

3. MM: Uruguay - apparently there was a debate last night, but I was too busy watching Uruguay dismantle Bolivia in the Copa America

4. JS: 

Predictions

1. DR: Democrats spend the weekend worrying/complaining about Biden while spending $275 for a dinner for 2 at a relatively ok place on 49th street and say, “Well, there’s nothing we can do about it.”

2. AB: 

3. MM: Italy beats Switzerland, Uruguay wins Copa America in a Brazil upset

4. JS: