🍋 Musk Mania: A Love-Hate Relationship in Silicon Valley

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Good Morning! Yesterday’s inflation data was better than expected (rose 6.5% year-over-year) - the Fed's interest rate hikes and a cooling economy caused the Consumer Price Index to drop for the 6th straight month.

Big banks are stuck with about $40 billion of risky debt on their books, putting the brakes on the M&A machine that's been fueling the champagne and caviar lifestyle of bankers and private-equity executives for the past decade.

Sam Bankman-Fried made a return to the digital world, dishing out his side of the story and using the website Substack to mount his defense. And the price of eggs soared 59.9% year-over-year, the largest annual jump since September 1973.

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1. Story of the Day: Musk Mania: A Love-Hate Relationship in Silicon Valley

Elon Musk has always seemed like the ultimate creation of Silicon Valley - a bold, nerdy innovator fearlessly disrupting one industry after another with reckless abandon. But these days, even Silicon Valley's biggest players seem to be divided on their thoughts about the tech icon. His recent stint as "chief twit" on Twitter has caused a rift among tech's elite, alienating some old allies while also making new ones.

Some view him as a modern-day Thomas Edison, who has revolutionized industries like cars and rockets with his rapid experimentation. However, others believe his methods can be capricious and damaging to company culture.

Is Elon Musk's Twitter behavior a small price to pay for turning the platform into a utopian town square? Or have his recent questionable actions, including trying to silence other social media platforms and bullying journalists and employees, finally crossed the line?

It's a tough question, especially considering that Tesla's stock has taken a hit and even NASA is questioning if Musk's Twitter antics are a distraction from the important work at SpaceX.

Some may say Mr. Musk's leadership tactics at Twitter are too extreme to work in Silicon Valley. Musk is a demanding boss, and he used a similar strategy at Tesla during its "production hell" phase in 2017 when many thought the company wouldn't make it. It remains to be seen if this approach will work at an established Silicon Valley company like Twitter. 

Takeaway: Some think Musk's Twitter experiment could have long-lasting effects on how tech companies are run. Musk’s antics aren’t just about business - buying Twitter is a personal and philosophical crusade to become the tech world's hero. But in the tight-knit world of investors and entrepreneurs, it's important to keep good relationships and not burn any bridges, but it's clear that Musk's actions are causing some divisions.

2. Markets Rundown

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Stocks closed slightly higher as inflation reached its lowest levels in a year.

Movers & Shakers

• (+) American Airlines ($AAL) +10% because the company boosted its quarterly revenue outlook.

• (+) Cognizant ($CTSH) +6% after the IT company raised its Q4 revenue guidance.

• (–) Logitech ($LOGI) -17% after the keyboard and mouse maker released results showing declining sales.

Private Dealmaking

• KKR invested an additional $1.15 billion into Altavair, a commercial aviation finance group 

• Kakao, a South Korean entertainment unit, raised $966 million

• ShiftKey, a healthcare staffing company, raised $300 million 

• Enpal, a solar-power system rental platform, raised $230 million

• HighTide Therapeutics, a biotech company aiming to treat metabolic diseases, raised $107 million

• Hack the Box, a cybersecurity education platform, raised $55 million 

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3. Top Reads

• The FTC’s noncompete ban would change M&A (Axios)

• Startup funding has tanked over the past year - and recession fears are to blame (CNBC)

• Big tech’s drop means more balance for S&P 500, 401(k)s (AP)

• Quiet hiring and the endless quest to coin terms about work (Vox)

• Congress’ debt ceiling risks could be real this time (Axios)

• Softer inflation print stirs hopes of Goldilocks scenario for markets (Reuters)

• Inflation could surprise investors again in 2023 (YF)

• Bitcoin jumps to highest level since FTX collapse on cooling inflation (CNBC)

• Do crypto prices actually mean anything? (HBR)

4. Book of the Day: The Algebra of Happiness

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Scott Galloway teaches brand strategy at NYU's Stern School of Business, but his most popular lectures deal with life strategy, not business. 

In the classroom, on his blog, and in YouTube videos garnering millions of views, he regularly offers hard-hitting answers to the big questions: 

What's the formula for a life well lived? How can you have a meaningful career, not just a lucrative one? Is work/life balance possible? What are the elements of a successful relationship? 

Whether it's advice on if you should drop out of school to be an entrepreneur (it might have worked for Steve Jobs, but you're probably not Steve Jobs), ideas on how to position yourself in a crowded job market (do something "boring" and move to a city; passion is for people who are already rich).

Discovering what the most important decision in your life is (it's not your job, your car, OR your zip code), or arguing that our relationships to others are ultimately all that matter, Galloway entertains, inspires, and provokes.

“The number one piece of advice seniors would give to their younger selves is that they wish they’d been less hard on themselves.”

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5. Short Squeez Picks

• 10 powerful systems to help you conquer 2023

• 5 ways to acquire new skills without going back to school

• Two lifestyle tables

• Lessons learned from the book ‘Effective Remote Work’

• Interview red flags that reveal the job is toxic 

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6. Daily Visual: BBBY Bonds Nosedive

Price of Bed Bath & Beyond 2044 Bond

Source: Axios

7. Daily Acumen

Luke Burgis on comparison:

"There’s a reason why going to a high school reunion is so awkward, and in some cases so terrifying:

we are re-engaging with people with whom we shared a baseline, with whom we were (and still are) close to in age, and with whom we shared a common social environment at one point in our lives. 

That is why it is all the more mortifying to see the disparities, and why the urge to compare is far stronger than it would be with someone who went to high school in a different state or who graduated in a different year. 

We’re less likely to think of ourselves as their rival."

8. Memes of the Day

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