🍋 Musk Goes Full Karen

Sheryl Sandberg is gone, and "There's a storm comin' Harry"- Jamie Dimon. Elon Musk is going full Karen and asking all employees to spend a minimum of 40 hours per week in the office. Johnny Depp won his defamation case against his ex-wife, Amber Heard and the jury awarded him $15 million in damages. (while the nation lost $150 billion in productivity).

Short Squeez
June 02, 2022

Together With

"As a leader, it is important to not just see your own success, but focus on the success of others." — Sundar Pichai

Good Morning! The COO of Meta, Sheryl Sandberg, is stepping down after 14 years. What was supposed to be a 5 year stint, turned into almost 3x that. Excited to see what crypto startup she creates... I mean what she does next. JPMorgan CEO, Jamie Dimon's, weather forecast doesn't look great. At a conference Dimon said, "You know, I said there's storm clouds, but I'm going to change it... it's a hurricane." Grab your coats and umbrellas kids. Johnny Depp won his defamation case against his ex-wife, Amber Heard and the jury awarded him $15 million in damages. (while the nation lost $150 billion in productivity).

If you are looking to supercharge your firm's IT strategy, Electric is here to help. Schedule your intro call today and get FREE Beats Solo3 Wireless Headphones.

1. Story of the Day: Musk Goes Full Karen

If you thought working at a tech company was cool and fun, think again. Elon "Karen" Musk, has apparently issued an ultimatum to Tesla employees to get them back into the office. In a series of memos, Musk wrote, "Everyone at Tesla is required to spend a minimum of 40 hours in the office per week [which is less than we ask of factory workers.]"

For someone who wants to buy Twitter, and be seen as cool, this is a very Boomer move. Also, highlighting that you work your factory employees even more, doesn't make do a whole lot for optics.

Musk went on to say, "The more senior you are, the more visible must be your presence." The cherry on top was, "Anyone who wishes to do remote work must be in the office for a minimum (and I mean "minimum") of 40 hours per week or depart Tesla."

Wow. Banks are trying to ease up on hours and be more flexible with employees, but Musk is taking his new school company back to the good (?) ol' days. Jamie Dimon, who has been torn on the subject of remote work is looking like a real sweetheart right about now.

Brian Kropp, head of HR research at Gartner, said "Companies that demand that their employees come back to the office are likely to face a set of problems. They will either have access to a smaller talent pool or will have to pay a compensation premium to force employees to come back."

Short Squeez Takeaway: If I was a Tesla employee, I'd be losing it. How is this guy going to make demands like this when it seems like he's spending most of his other time talking about another company, that he doesn't even own! My favorite quote of the memos might be, "If you don't show up, we will assume you have resigned." Well, Elon, when was the last time you showed up to the office?

Source: Axios, Bloomberg

2. Markets Rundown

Stocks started June off in the red, and even though the tech sector was up, crypto was down. Once again, not the decoupling crypto investors were looking for.

Movers & Shakers

(+) Salesforce ($CRM) +10% thanks to a stronger than expected quarterly earnings report.
(+) Victoria's Secret ($VSCO) +9% after an earnings beat in the last quarter.
(–) Delta ($DAL) -5% because they said they expect sales to return to prepandemic levels.

Private Dealmaking

Croatian hypercar maker Rimac raised €500 million in Series D funding
Coralogix, raised $142 million in Series D funding from Advent and Brighton Park
Indian digital credit provider, Slice, raised $50 million in Series C funding at an over $1.5 billion valuation
Tiger Global led a $15.8 million Series A round for HitPay
Blackstone is in talks to buy Advarra from Genstar Capital for around $5 billion
Blackstone is also in talks to invest in carbon trading platform Xpansiv

3. Top Reads

Amazon workers close to recouping work at home expenses (BB)
US job openings near record highs (Axios)
LaGuardia's revamped terminal is finally opening (BB)
Car sharing service Turo sets off in NY (Axios)
The next stablecoin collapse could be even worse (BB)
$5.8 billion in student loans to be forgiven (NYT)
Amundi CIO says parts of PE look like a Ponzi scheme (BB)
Massachusetts and gig worker labor laws (NYT)
SeatGeek and Forbes out on SPAC deals in this market (WSJ)

A Message from Electric: Get a Free Pair of Beats Solo3 Wireless Headphones

105% ROI on IT costs and free Beats Wireless headphones? Electric can give you both.

Electric is here to help your company update its boomer IT strategy.

If you are an IT-decision maker at a US-based company (10 - 500 employees), here’s how Electric can help you:

Upgrade to lightning-fast IT support
Proactive security standardization
Streamlined employee onboarding & offboarding

Schedule your intro call today and get FREE Beats Solo3 Wireless Headphones.

4. Book of the Day: Why Does The Stock Market Go Up?: Everything You Should Have Been Taught About Investing In School, But Weren't

Have you ever heard a news reporter say "the Dow rose 300 points today" and had no clue what they meant? If the answer is yes, you're not alone! Most people are taught nothing about investing or the stock market while they are in school.

In Why Does The Stock Market Go Up, Brian Feroldi demystifies the stock market by explaining what it is and how it works using easy-to-understand terms and simple examples. This book was designed to arm ordinary people with the knowledge that they need to build extraordinary wealth.

Why Does The Stock Market Go Up is the easy-to-digest book that everyone needs to read. Feroldi breaks down the basic investing concepts so that anyone can understand and take action. The financial services industry has spent decades telling average Joes and Janes that they can't possibly understand the stock market.

Feroldi proves them wrong with his easy-to-understand examples and explanations. You too can understand why the stock market goes up, or down, and how it impacts your financial future. Never before has investing in stocks or bonds seemed so straightforward.

“The stock market is the greatest wealth creation machine of all time.”

5. Short Squeez Picks

Sick of biased news stories? 1440’s got you covered. Check out 1440 — the fastest way to an impartial point of view on the news. Their team scours 100+ news sources, ranging from culture and science to sports and politics, to get you caught up on the day’s events in a single 5 minute email. Join for free today
How to read more (Podcast | 11 mins)
None of those quick grocery delivery companies will work

6. Daily Visual: "I'd Quit If..."

Percentage of tech employees who'd quit for various reasons

Source: Axios

7. Daily Acumen: Little Ideas

False Uniqueness Effect: Assuming your skills are unique when they’re not. Comes from conflating “I’m good at this” with “Others are bad at this.”

Depressive Realism: Depressed people have a more accurate view of the world because they’re more realistic about how risky and fragile life is. The opposite of “blissfully unaware.”

Boomerang Effect: Trying to persuade someone to do one thing can make them more likely to do the opposite, because the act of persuasion can feel like someone stealing your freedom and doing the opposite makes you feel like you’re taking your freedom back.

The 90-9-1 Rule: In social media networks, 90% of users just read content, 9% of users contribute a little content, and 1% of users contribute almost all the content. Gives a false impression of what ideas are popular or “average.”

Source: Collaborative Fund