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HOUSEKEEPING 📨

I made it onto my favourite YouTube channel in the world this week. If you haven’t already done so, check out Good Work, it’s hilarious. On Friday they released a deep dive on ayahuasca, which I featured in. They kinda made me seem pro-ayahuasca in my 2-minute take, which was probably the only positive thing I said in the 40-minute interview. But that’s neither here nor there. Their videos are awesome, check them out!

Other than that, I am off road tripping with Ziggy (my dog) as today. Down the coast of Argentina, and then further south to Patagonia. Me and the boy and so very excited. Anyway, today’s piece is a fun one, it’s my 12 hot takes of Christmas. Enjoy!

BUILDING IN PUBLIC 🔎

My Twelve Takes Of Christmas

Every year, around this time of year, all your favourite creators roll out their wrap ups, predictions and hot takes from the year past, or year that’s coming. There is literally nothing worse. Except they are kinda addictive. And I have to admit it … I kinda like them. This is one of those pieces.

Some of these are takes of things that happened in the past, some of them are predictions for the future, and some are just things that have been on my mind for some time now that I want to get off my chest. Anyway, here goes readers, let’s dive right in.

1/ The adoration of Mr Beast will recede

I am going to say what everyone else is thinking. Mr Beast sucks. There, I said it. Sure, his ambition is cool, and his execution is utter savagery, but he adds ‘meh’ to the world. And on top of the absolute ‘meh’ that he adds, he now adds disgusting food by way of slightly less bad chocolate bars, and trashy unhealthy lunch meals for children.

Mr Beast is the genuine Steve Jobs of the creator economy. He has so much power. Why on earth do you use such power for such garbage. Did Jimmy never watch Spider-Man?

But this isn’t me just crying over spilt Prime. He is genuine scam artist, at least according to famous investigator of shady internet dealing, Coffeezilla. Maybe one day Mr Beast will wake up and think that the best way to add value to the world, is to add value to the world. Until then, his adoration will continue to plummet.

2/ We will begin to question the ’prediction market’ gambling industry

This one hurts me. As an Australian, the U.S. move to legalise gambling across the country is one that it will rue for years to come. In Australia, we gamble more per capita than any other country in the world. And I have personally seen it destroy lives. In the United States, they will begin to see that too.

The thing that frustrates me the most is when I have to listen to ads about DraftKings, FanDuel and BetMGM on all my favourite podcasts, from Bill Simmons, to Theo Von. In Australia, you’re looked at as trash if you associate with gambling brands. It’s the equivalent of doing business with a cigarette company.

And I retract my previous “what frustrates me most” statement, because what actually frustrates me even more is when I see this disgraceful industry start to infiltrate tech. Polymarket, who tout themselves as the ‘World’s Largest Prediction Market’ became all the rage during the U.S. election recently. Now all of a sudden you could bet on anything, including the election.

Or in other words, the biggest losers of the week section. No one wins in gambling. No one. But the tech community thinks it’s incredible. The newly minted ‘prediction market.’ Even my favourite writer on the internet (sad face emoji). Yes it’s interesting. Yes, the tech is cool. But you should be ashamed if you are associating your brand with this.

3/ Humane’s messaging bombed (not the product)

I invested in the Humane AI pin. And yes, we can all laugh and point our fingers at me like I am a dullard now, but this technology was meant to work. Where did it falter?—well apart from the fact that the founder salesman of the whole thing was about as good of a storyteller as my dog Ziggy—it faltered because people just kept talking about how inconvenient it would be to carry around this device and your phone.

This week, I even heard the team at The Verge discussing this device utter something along the lines of; “a device to help you keep your phone in your pocket more.” Noooo, you don’t get it. This was meant to kill the phone. The era of the phone is over. How the PR team at Humane wasn’t able to communicate that to the larger tech community is beyond me.

The product was of course early, and sure some of the features were shitty and/or non-existent but the first iPhone had a click wheel for Baby Jesus’ sake.

_{*Ok it didn’t but it totally could have and we’d still be here with the iPhone 67 today.}

Here is the take then, I guess. And I stand by it: If the world’s greatest showman (/bullshitter), Adam Neumann had been the one selling the vision of this device, we’d all be lining up to buy one. And we’d all have gotten back around 6.5 hours each of screen time in the doing. Which leads my to my next take.

4/ Smartphones will trend towards low status items

This take is a slightly farther out take than a 2025 take. Take this as more of a premonition. But it’s my absolute belief that phones will soon become a low status piece of technology. Glasses are here, the pin idea could work. The most jarring experience in the entire world is sitting on public transport, then looking up to see the zombies scrolling mindlessly on their device. Then what is worse, is coming to the realisation that you are one of them.

_{*Note: the chart I used went to 2019 so I made the rest up, but you get the point right?}

Smoking was cool too in the Don Draper era. In the future, people will look back and talk about how their dorky grandma used to dance in the street to literally no music all the way through her teens and early twenties.

5/ There are a lot of mean people out there (Luigimania)

Free Luigi was crazy. But I somewhat understand—although I don’t condone—some of the hate that was in the end directed towards the healthcare and insurance system in the United States. What I don’t understand is the meme culture. When someone is shot and killed, if you are out there rushing to posts memes about it, delete my number. You are not a serious person.

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7/ Trump’s first year will be seen as a success and the US economy will boom

It’s my belief that Trump is a bad guy. A charismatic, kinda funny, interesting but bad guy. However, I do not personally believe that he is an evil guy. I don’t agree with a lot of his politics, but I don’t think he’s the devil. His tariffs may tank the economy, sure, and if he carries through on his deportation plans the U.S. is going to look somewhat Third Reich-ish, but I don’t personally think he’ll pull either of those two things off, and my gut tells me he doesn’t really want to, that much.

8/ Elon becomes total villain outside of MAGA

Having said all of that, I do think the Unites States looks more and more like an autocratic state every day. The 2025 market will rip, and maybe 2026 too. But when politics becomes transactional, nations begin to fail. At least that’s what it says in this book I am currently re-reading.

And as much as I think the Trump stock is rising, and will continue to, I firmly believe that the Elon stock will plummet. If the weeks spending bill meltdown is anything to go by, Elon seems determined to go about things the way he did with the Twitter acquisition. With zero respect for anybody or anything. And I don’t think that will fare well on the global stage.

Elon is my entrepreneurial hero. I think he’s really the only household name in big tech that is building anything of substance. And I am also excited to see what DOGE can achieve. But I don’t think I like the man he is becoming.

The infamous District Attorney of Gotham, Harvey Dent once quoth the phrase; “You either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain.” I suspect we are watching this play out in real time before our very eyes with Elon.

9/ The agentic revolution is here

This one is an easy one. Lots of jobs will be displaced in 2025, as more and more companies will find agentic superpowers. It’s pretty exciting really. Well, exciting and scary. If the last few years of earnings calls have been filled with dozens of mentions of AI, then in 2025 those mentions will pivot towards ‘agents,’ one of the first incredibly strong use cases of our new dystopian / utopian world.

10/ The robotic revolution is also here

And what’s really exciting, just as the agents are knocking on our door, so are robots. Dangerous, monotonous, and impossible tasks in 2025 will begin to be handed off to the likes of your colleagues Optimus, C-3PO and HAL 9000.

My favourite player in the space, and the one to watch is Figure, led by Brett Adcock, who just this week shipped their first batch of working robots to a client, only two short years after founding the company.

11/ Apple will continue to lose prestige

Recently on the All-In Podcast, oft-maligned (rightly so) bestie, Chamath Palihapitiya went on a long rant about how his new iPhone simply does not work. He may have been somewhat hyperbolic, but everywhere you look, you see Apple hate these days.

The iPhone doesn’t release meaningful features, Meta ate Apple’s lunch on the next form factor (glasses), and Apple have chosen to sit out the battle for AI super-supremacy with the rest of big tech. The company recently reported earnings that added up to the longest streak of declines in two decades. Cracks are beginning to show in Apple’s future.

At the end of the day, the most powerful thing Apple has at their disposal is their brand. It’s the difference between a Motorola phone. Their brand is their margin. But their brand is slipping.

12/ Google + others chase down OpenAI

Menlo Ventures recently released a report that detailed the state of generative AI today, and what stood out to me was the share of LLMs, with OpenAI in particular plummeting from 50% market share to 34%. But that’s only part of what worries me.

What really worries me is that for a long time, I’ve not been hearing anyone referring to OpenAI as the best model. Although I pay my monthly AI taxes to both OpenAI and Anthropic, I always prefer Claude’s output than ChatGPT. Always.

And then recently something even crazier happened with Google dropping it’s Veo 2 video creator, which quite literally blows Sora out of the water. And yeah, I get it that it’s a to and fro between models often, but it just seems that OpenAI aren’t really the leader anymore. At least in the public psyche. Look at this developer exodus from Open AI.

What is even worse though is the entire place looks like it’s rotten to the core. Anyone and everyone has piled out of that place since the would be coup of Sam Altman in November of 2023. There company formation is another issue. Eeek.

It kinda sucks because there is something super likeable about Sam Altman. He may be a baby-faced assassin that is ultimately out to create AGI and take over as Emperor of the Known World but I just don’t get those vibes. I root for him. But for me, I see Google, Anthropic, Meta and others gaining ground on Sam again in 2025.

Summary (and apology)

That’s all the takes I have for you today. Sorry if they seemed a bit negative, and sorry if I didn’t take all that much time to back these takes up with data. I am sitting here, late at night, smashing away on the keyboard, I guess this was really just about getting some things off my chest. I’d love to hear what you thought, hit me up with a reply to tell me what I got right, and what you think I got totally wrong. Thanks for reading!

Extra reading

And that's it! You can follow me on Twitter and LinkedIn and also don’t forget to check out Athyna while you’re at it.

HIRING ZONE 👀 

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BRAIN FOOD 🧠 

I recently came across a pretty epic episode from the Acquired podcast about Mars, Inc.—yeah, the company behind M&M’s and Snickers. Apparently, the Mars family, who still owns it all, is shrouded in secrecy but ranks among the wealthiest in the U.S.

I liked how the episode dives deep into their entrepreneurial journey across industries varying from candy to pet care. There was lots I didn’t know, super worth a listen if you're into crazy business stories.

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TOOLS WE USE 🛠️

Every week we highlight tools we actually use inside of our business and give them an honest review. Today we are highlighting Paddle—a merchant of record, managing payments, tax and compliance needs—we use their ProfitWell tool.

See the full set of tools we use inside of Athyna & Open Source CEO here.

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