Month: February 2024

“SmartNews also instituted an annual company road trip as part of this project. Employees, often accompanied by Suzuki himself, would drive through political swing states across the American Rust Belt and the South to interview SmartNews users, local voters, and politicians. The company’s most recent road trip in the fall of 2022 brought members of the marketing team to Atlanta, Georgia, ahead of the state’s midterm elections.

The trips often included visits to rallies for Donald Trump, multiple employees said. “Why would I want to give up one week of my life showing some guy from Tokyo around a Trump rally?” recalled one employee who declined an invitation to join the road trip in 2020. “The whole premise of the idea was very bizarre.”

https://restofworld.org/2023/smartnews-japan-unicorn-layoffs-media/

“Everyone is trying to sell this thing you’ve created to the next person in line, that’s how the industry works. At its core, it’s a sales business. Not creative. Try to get that into your head. This is not a creative industry, you didn’t read Save The Cat from cover to cover because you wanted to be David Lynch

When I left school I worked in sales for a couple of years, and I learned one very valuable lesson; most sales people don’t relish a challenge. They would far rather you gave them something easy to sell, something that sells itself. “We’d be more comfortable selling this movie if you had Tom Cruise attached”. Sure, I get that. But if I had Tom Cruise, I could sell the fucking thing myself – how about you try earning your commission?”

https://developmenthell.substack.com/p/the-collapse-of-hollywood

“So how do political opponents take on a popular agenda? Well, instead of taking it on directly, you do it by being super-boring. Just cut the budget of the entity you don’t like. And indeed, since the turn against antitrust in the 1980s, Congress has been cutting the funding of the Antitrust Division, such that it has 230 fewer employees today than it did in 1979, despite a much larger economy. Few pro-consolidation politicians said “I like monopolies,” instead they just defunded the cops”

https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/congressional-republicans-to-defund

“But for creators, and for the world, that inefficiency was often wonderful. The inefficiency of old media formats resulted in less surveillance of the purchasing and behavioral habits of individuals, and larger surpluses that sustained a healthier, more vibrant media ecosystem that could even afford to invest in important stories or content despite the fact that they might not have a large audience”

https://anildash.com/2024/02/06/wherever-you-get-podcasts/

“The phrase ‘women locked up in restitution centers to pay off court expenses and forced to work at fast food restaurants’ chills to the bone. It is so shocking, so cynical and twisted, and somehow not the least bit surprising”

https://newsletter.scammerdarkly.com/archive/chain-gang-prison-labor-boeing-23andme-and-taking/