🦄 SVN: Teens Are Befriending AI Chatbots

Great day, everyone! I am back in the good ol’ U.S. of A. and can’t wait to dominate dinner parties regaling tales of my time abroad in Por-tu-gaaal (said with an accent). I haven’t felt this cultured and superior since I did Dry January for 4 days and lemme tell ya, it feels great. Now let’s get into it…

This Week’s Piping 🔥⛺️ (Hot ‘Tent)

• Teens Befriending AI Chatbots

• Spotify Takes Away Lyrics

• Tesla Spiraling?

• Bored Ape Yacht Club is Apparently Still a Thing

• Crackdown on Wall Street Homebuyers

• Ozempic Can’t Keep Up with Demand

• And more juicy tidbits…

The Silly Valley

🤖 Teens Are Befriending AI Chatbots. Character.AI is an AI chatbot service that attracts over 3.5 million site visitors per day. The AI characters range from a “Psychologist” to a teenage version of Voldemort (Harry Potter). Users on Reddit are bragging about how addicted they are to the platform and how much they prefer chatbots over human beings. Yikes? While “research shows that chatbots can aid in lessening feelings of depression, anxiety, and stress,” my boomer millennial brain can’t help but think this is just one more piece of evidence that society is declining.

🎧 Spotify Takes Away Song Lyrics for Free Users. In a move that will only be embraced by freestyle rappers, Spotify is removing song lyrics for its free users. Good luck catching every witty bar of Kendrick’s dismantling of Drake. Oh wait, Google still works. While Spotify does have its viral, trendy annual music review ‘Spotify Wrapped,’ it’s not enough to charge more than it’s biggest competitor, Apple. Despite generating over $14B in revenue last year, Spotify reported a net loss of $580M, and they’ve never achieved a profitable year in the company’s 18 year history. Spotify should probably stop buying Starbucks and avocado toast.

🚗 Is Tesla Spiraling? A few weeks after firing 10% of his workforce, Musky boy has fired the head of his supercharger team (and her 500 person staff), the guy in charge of developing new vehicles (and his entire team), as well as the Head of HR. I know, it’s shocking to think that Musk ever had an HR department. The real worry here though, is that while Tesla’s sales and profit margins have decreased, what makes them more than just a car-company is their supercharger network. But now it appears they’re cutting back on that investment too? It’s hard to ever say what Elon’s plans are, but I’m just a sales-guy, so who am I to speculate?

Sales Fact of The Week

Outside The Bubble

🙈 Bored Ape Yacht Club Prices Drop 90%. YugaLabs’ Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT collection launched in April 2021 to tremendous success. Within one year, a single Bored Ape was auctioned by Sotheby’s for $24M. At its height, YugaLabs had raised $450M in seed funding and was valued around $4B. As of today, its prices have dropped 90% and the company announced layoffs. Luckily its fearless leader, CEO Greg Solano, tweeted that the company needs to be more “cryptonative. ” Of course we all know what that means so clearly they have super solid plan going forward. Despite the fact that NFT’s are literally jpegs, just a few weeks ago some an anonymous rich idiot spent $12M worth of Ethereum for a single CryptoPunk NFT. 

💉Weight-Loss Drugs Balloon Big Pharma Pockets. By now you’ve probably heard of Ozempic, the drug designed for people with type-2 diabetes, but famous for helping people lose weight. Thanks to 42% of America falling into the obese, or medically speaking, the ‘Thicc-As'-Hell’ category, analysts predict that drugs like Ozempic could soon be worth $100B per year. Unfortunately for those with type 2 diabetes, the popularity of the drugs has led to a shortage. In response, companies like Novo Nordisk have invested $6B (!) to boost production of the drugs. So, until then your boi is cultivating mass.

🏡 Crackdown on Wall Street Homebuyers. Lawmakers say that Wall Street’s aggressive acquisitions have driven up home prices with cash offers while lowering available inventory. I would know, I’m 35 and don’t own a home. In 2022 alone, investors on Wall Street bought more than a quarter of the single family homes sold. But, new bills in the House and Senate will prevent them from owning more than 50 rental homes. Since 2021, housing affordability has declined 30% across the U.S. And while these bills may help, the bigger issue appears to be the time and money it takes to create new housing. Either way, I’m going to be renting for eternity.

Last Week’s Piping 🔥⛺️ (Hot ‘Tent)

Nightmare Bosses was so hot we had to go Back 2 Back (No Drizzy, but we do like that record)…

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