With ers Without You

“They just laughed their asses off. Like, imagine an hour of somebody just laughing at you. That was kind of how that meeting went.”

– Kevin Bachus, the former director of third-party relations for Microsoft’s Xbox unit, recalling (for the 20th anniversary look-back at Xbox) the time when Steve Ballmer sent a team to see about acquiring Nintendo.

via M.G Siegler’s Happy Hour email

I find it interesting that this important research of 60,000 Australians released as a YouTube video has only been watched 154 times. It’s fascinating data on Australian consumers trust, and also separately, distrust of Australian brands, companies, and industries.

“Ninety-nine percent of who you are is invisible and untouchable.”

– Buckminster Fuller

A friend, hi Andy, was talking about business and investment opportunities in the coming years. I blurted this out as a text message but thought I might record it here on my blog to look back on in 8 years time.

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The 2020’s - in Australia and the western world - Will be marked by a couple of significant factors.

– Number one will be high interest rate policy, HIRP, after a decade of low interest-rate policy, LIRP, interest rates will start to rise and this is going to change a lot of things economically - hopefully positively - for the world. My uneducated guess is that it’s going to be a time of slightly more wealth distribution. Low interest-rate policy takes the wealth out of the centre, high interest policy will spread it around more and create more opportunities financially.

• Secondly, there will be a very significant change in the mindsets of people to live for the moment. This means short-term gratification, short-term wins, short-term growth, will be favourable and long-term success will be less popular. There are opportunities here to take advantage of those people.

• Thirdly, experiences like travel and other in person experiences will have a very high growth rate after we’ve been locked up for a while. We want and need to connect with our history, our people, our families and friends.

• Finally, media and communication, social networks, and how we use technology to live, is going to change dramatically with a shift away from Facebook and Google and Microsoft, and there will be a move towards deeper online experiences in smaller niche communities. This is another real opportunity for investment and growth. A good example of this is the company unity who is listed in America under the stock code U. They just purchased Weta in NZ and that positions them amazingly to creat in real time 3D worlds, entertainment experiences like a movie or TV show, and of course games which I already involved in. In the past where you would think of an idea like a TV show and then you would write it, and then you would have to cast and film it. In the future with technology like unity is working on your then just program the script into the system and then you’ll have a TV show. So many massive opportunities in how we experience life and entertainment.

One bonus point: weed. As that’s decriminalised there’s big opportunities imho.

Thought I’d share something I’m proud of today: I’ve consolidated all of our family’s brands and business ventures under the one website/domain name: withers.co

From David Perell’s Monday Musings email:

Whenever you find yourself thinking you’re late to a new technological trend, remember that Walt Disney thought he was late to animation in 1923. ​ On the same theme, Marc Andreessen thought he’d missed the Silicon Valley boom when he arrived in 1994. He said: “My big feeling was I just missed it, I missed the whole thing. It had happened in the ‘80s, and I got here too late.” ​ According to one of my Twitter followers, some of the earliest written fragments from Sumer in 3,000 BCE show people complaining that all the good subjects had already been covered by earlier poets.

I don’t know who needs to hear this, but we don’t use whisky stones, save your money

Epidemiologists: Omicron’s not a big deal guys. News media: NEW FLESH, LET’S GO BABY!

1859 or 2021?

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness…”

We’ll that’s the last time I try to rent a hit man through RentAHitman.com, the guy behind it just forwards all the enquiries to the police and they aren’t proper hitmen. shout out to all the hitladies that also feel excluded.

Business idea: drone birth photography.

My secret superpower is telling people that the lyrics in the chorus of George Ezra’s Budapest are “I’d leave it all”.

Welcome to the Withers Cinematic Universe.