51–60 of 126 posts
This was a really striking sentence: > We've witnessed a halving of journalists since 2008, while the number of corporate communications execs has tripled. In sum, the ratio of bullshit/spin to watchdogs has increased sixfold. I personally know half a dozen former journalists that recently moved over to PR, but I hadn't realized had much of a sea change it's been over the last decade.
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Yes, and similarly for Apple’s insistence that you not use “the” with iPhone. (Which Nintendo also did for the Wii.)
I've noticed this, bht ahve never been sure why. Maybe some marketing guy can offer insight here? I don't see this making a huge difference. It seems as though they want it referred to as a proper noun? I guess maybe it increases significance or something? Foreigners, does Apple do this in other languages, too?
This was a really striking sentence: > We've witnessed a halving of journalists since 2008, while the number of corporate communications execs has tripled. In sum, the ratio of bullshit/spin to watchdogs has increased sixfold. I personally know half a dozen former journalists that recently moved over to PR, but I hadn't realized had much of a sea change it's been over the last decade.
> We've witnessed a halving of journalists since 2008, while the number of corporate communications execs has tripled. In sum, the ratio of bullshit/spin to watchdogs has increased sixfold. This assumes that journalists are capable of spotting (and willing to) spin / bullshit in the first place.
What's so unique about a tech company that it would be immune to standard journalistic practices? And is We even truly a tech company anyway?
This is brilliant writing. Please keep it up.
If anyone knows of any other tech/biz strategy readings like these, please share!
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Kind of what happens when you name your company something insanely stupid like “We”. And yes I read your last sentence in Gollum’s voice and it was perfect. :)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wii
Plus the spelling is different on Wii, so it's not confusable in written text regardless.
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If there really has been fraud at this scale, and nobody at the Vision fund noticed or cared, the issue is not one of solvency.
We don’t know that they didn’t. They might just not have cared so long as the plan to dump the stock on retail investors and cash out themselves was on track.
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Brand is worth something. WeWork offices are designed to be appealing to young people (free beer, group activities etc) which makes it appealing to businesses. Also in real estate location, location, location is a differentiator.
Imagine you are CEO of an old fashioned company where people do work and revenue > expenses. You want to buy drinks for your staff. Do you a) put your card behind a local bar at happy hour every Friday or b) in an incredibly roundabout way pay premium rent so your staff can enjoy “free” drinks in the office ? No. Outside of hipster hotspots WeWork makes no sense.
This is brilliant writing. Please keep it up.
I love Stratechery and had never heard of this. Definitely signing up to the mailing list. If anyone knows of any other tech/biz strategy readings like these, please share!
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I've noticed this, bht ahve never been sure why. Maybe some marketing guy can offer insight here? I don't see this making a huge difference. It seems as though they want it referred to as a proper noun? I guess maybe it increases significance or something? Foreigners, does Apple do this in other languages, too?
They've tried it in France but it didn't work at all and was joked upon (among other things). They now use a pronoun in marketing materials. Weirdly enough, they insist on using 'iPhone' as a proper noun in Canadian French.
Btw, there was an interesting case where the inclusion of "the" in the French version caused conflict:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Security_Counci...
(And I think you mean a definite article rather than a pronoun?)
https://www.profgalloway.com/wewtf
It's just as fun to read. It contains this sentence: Adam's wife is Gwyneth Paltrow's cousin, meaning Adam is two degrees removed from Goop, an assault on humanity.
But the gist of Part Deux is really that the F in WTF stands for Fraud. Let's hope this story ends with some jail time for the main characters.