🍋 Tipping Gets Creepy

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Good Morning! Tucker Carlson dropped another viral video on Twitter yesterday, announcing plans to bring a "new version" of his old Fox News show to Twitter. Elon said no deal was signed. You might have also noticed a drop in your Twitter followers, but don’t worry. It’s just Elon following up on his plan to purge the platform of inactive accounts. Goldman Sachs agreed to pay $215m to settle decade-long gender discrimination lawsuit.

Suburban malls are booming thanks to hybrid work, and a new study found Americans spend two full days a week on email and meetings. Amazon is trying to cut shipping costs and is offering users up to $10 to pick their items up in-person.

Tired of spending endless hours on mundane, manual tasks? Introducing Automate Your Busywork, a book by Jotform’s CEO Aytekin Tank, dropping on May 16th. Pre-order here.

1. Story of the Day: Tipping Gets Creepy

Imagine this scenario: you're at an airport or stadium, using a self-checkout kiosk to purchase some items. As you complete your transaction, you're presented with a prompt to leave a tip. You pause, wondering why you would tip a machine for doing a job that it was designed to do. You also start to question where these tips are even going, considering that these businesses are already cutting costs by implementing self-checkouts.

This isn't just an isolated incident - tip machines are becoming more prevalent in all sorts of self-checkout businesses. From airports and stadiums to even local coffee shops, companies are using these machines to squeeze more money out of their customers.

Businesses taking advantage of an opportunity - for a relatively low cost, they can make even more money. They're essentially passing on the responsibility of their own labor costs to consumers.

But is ‘tip creeping’ going too far? Some consumers think tipping in the absence of any human interaction feels like emotional blackmail. And while businesses are required by law to pay tips to their employees, there's some gray area when it comes to machines.

Takeaway: Businesses are finding that consumers are willing to tip for almost any reason - or maybe even no reason at all. So the next time a machine asks you for a tip - don’t let it guilt trip you into the default 22% tip option!

2. Markets Rundown

Stocks closed lower ahead of the key CPI report.

Movers & Shakers

• (+) Novavax ($NVAX) +28% after the company announced job cuts, positive vaccine data.

• (+) Palantir ($PLTR) +23% after the company expects to post its first ever full profitable year.

• (–) PayPal ($PYPL) -13% after lowering its forecast for full-year margins.

Private Dealmaking

• Option Care Health bought Amedisys, a home health and hospice provider, for $3.6 billion 

• JD Sports bought Courir, a French sneaker retailer, raised $571 million

• UVeye, an automated vehicle inspection systems, raised $100 million

• Liquidity Group, a provider of debt solutions, raised $40 million 

• Uwill, a mental health platform for college students, raised $30 million

• Inbox Health, a patient billing communications platform, raised $22.5 million

Automate Your Busywork Dropping on May 16th

Are you tired of spending endless hours on mundane, manual tasks? Do you wish you could focus on the critical aspects of your work and life? Then we have great news for you!

Introducing Automate Your Busywork, dropping on May 16th, a book by SaaS CEO and no-code enthusiast Aytekin Tank. 🚀

Tank explores the power of automation to free your brain from the big stuff, enabling you to achieve high levels of productivity and success. With Automate Your Busywork, you'll learn:

• How the future of business is no-code and how you can use an automation-first mindset to unlock your productivity potential

• Strategies for finally having the time you need to accomplish your most important work

• How to use automation to achieve "timefulness," the state of having enough time

Discover how you can leverage no-code automation tools to transform your business and life for the better. 💡

Pre-order Automate Your Busywork today.

3. Top Reads

• ChatGPT is causing a stock-market ruckus (WSJ)

• Stress in the banking system is easing (Axios)

• China finally has a rival as the world’s factory floor (WSJ)

• How to characterize the American economy (CNN)

• America is drunk on credit (Fortune)

• Don’t count Zuckerberg out of the AI race (Vox)

• College graduates are overestimating their starting salaries by $30k (CNBC)

• US caring economy was broken before Covid-19 (BB)

• Why the Federal Reserve is watching commercial real estate (Axios)

• Papa John’s CEO sees place for AI in pizza business (YF)

4. Book of the Day: Meganets

David Auerbach’s exploration of the phenomenon he has identified as the meganet begins with a simple, startling revelation.

There is no hand on the tiller of some of the largest global digital forces that influence our daily lives: from corporate sites such as Facebook, Amazon, Google, YouTube, Instagram, and Reddit to the burgeoning metaverse encompassing cryptocurrencies and online gaming to government systems such as China’s Social Credit System and India’s Aadhaar.

As we increasingly integrate our society, culture and politics within a hyper-networked fabric, Auerbach explains how the interactions of billions of people with unfathomably large online networks have produced a new sort of beast: ever-changing systems that operate beyond the control of the individuals, companies, and governments that created them.

Meganets, Auerbach explains, have a life of their own, actively resisting attempts to control them as they accumulate data and produce spontaneous, unexpected social groups and uprisings that could not have even existed twenty years ago. And they constantly modify themselves in response to user behavior, resulting in collectively authored algorithms none of us intend or control.

“The autonomous digital forces jolting our lives – as uncontrollable as the weather and plate tectonics – are transforming life, society, culture, and politics.”

5. Short Squeez Picks

• How avoiding the spotlight effect can help you become successful

• 10 tips for building a successful entrepreneur mindset

• 13 signs you’re becoming a stronger person

• How active listening boosts trust

• 10 morning routine habits of successful people

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Explore this investment.

6. Daily Visual: Here’s Why You Can’t Get Any Work Done

Share of time spent in Microsoft 365, by application

_{Source: Axios}

7. Daily Acumen

Take time to appreciate the present moment. It's easy to get caught up in thoughts about the past or worries about the future, but the only moment we truly have is the present.

Take a few deep breaths and focus on the sensations around you - the warmth of the sun on your skin, the sound of the birds singing, the taste of your food.

By bringing your attention to the present moment, you can cultivate a sense of mindfulness and gratitude for the simple joys of life.

Remember, life is not a destination, it's a journey, and it's important to savor each moment along the way.

8. Memes of the Day

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