^{CHITTER CHATTER}

Mike Cannon-Brookes Takes Another Hit
Mike Cannon-Brookes' public persona has taken a steady beating, and the latest beat-up from Janet Albrechtsen over at The Australian pummels poor Mike mightily: “Cannon-Brookes is a textbook case of the inverse relationship between the amount of silly jargon one uses and the amount of respect one earns. He loses respect by drowning himself in words that sound as if they have been washed, rinsed and spun through some corporate-speak therapy cycle. All this talk of sacking people with heart and humanity can’t hide the fact Cannon-Brookes is – at heart – a brutal capitalist.”

I know the hyphenated Cannon-Brookes surname is a bit different from the spelling of Mr. Brooks, the Kevin Costner film about a celebrated businessman who is also a serial killer but that’s where my mind goes. Obviously, I’m not saying Cannon-Brookes is that. But it does bring to mind that same polished public mask barely hiding something savage underneath.

From a reputation management perspective: When they love you, they laud you. When they don’t, every contradiction looks suspicious.

Adobe: Design Darling No More
Adobe is beginning to resemble the corporate equivalent of a once-cool giant living off old glory, immoral consumer practices and denial. The US government sued it over allegedly hidden fees and punishing cancellations, and Adobe’s response was essentially: we improved things, but definitely did nothing wrong. Sure. Now battered shares and the departure of its long-time CEO are fuelling fresh doubts about whether it can withstand cheaper, faster AI rivals. Is this the end, Blockbuster-style? Not yet. But Adobe is looking alarmingly like a company that heard the disruption and hit snooze.

A Job That Pays You to Bully AI. Interested?
If you’ve got an inner bully straining at the leash, good news: an AI startup is willing to pay you $800 to spend a full day verbally roughing up chatbots. The job, improbably titled Professional AI Bully, involves testing what bots forget, repeating yourself, and documenting the many ways they still manage to disappoint. Apparently, this is marketing for the company’s AI memory tool, which is either clever or a sign we’ve entered a deeply strange phase of capitalism. At last, being irritated by technology is no longer a personality flaw. It’s billable.

^SUBTEXT

The Waffle: “After careful consideration, we’ve made the difficult decision to let you go as the company moves in a different direction.” — Typical HR spiel

Translated: There is nothing careful about that consideration. It’s careless, impersonal, and designed to make a callous decision sound mature, measured and responsible.

Founder Cosplay noun | [fown-der cos-play]

A tech-bro condition in which extreme wealth and corporate power are disguised beneath the costume of a rebellious outsider. Common among billionaires with a scruffy appearance, cultivated facial hair, expensive ‘casual’ clothes, and a studied air of anti-establishment authenticity. Symptoms include speaking like a disruptor while behaving like a ruthless capitalist, mistaking messiness for moral seriousness, and dressing as though a board meeting might break out at a Byron Bay kombucha bar. Side effects: public hypocrisy, brand confusion, and the slow collapse of the humane-underdog persona. Cure: a mirror, a barber, and plain English.

Semantic Warfare: The fine art of arguing over language so nobody has to admit what’s plainly true. A favourite tactic of tech executives under pressure, it involves turning straightforward concerns into tedious word games about whether something was a goal, a milestone, a feature or merely a trade-off. Useful for strategic hair-splitting and lawyered-up evasiveness. Use it when you need to obfuscate, stall, and wriggle out of conceding an inch while sounding calm and thoughtful.

^{THE SHALLOW END}

Dear Dr Comms
I’m a billionaire CEO with a large private jet, a $30 million mansion, and a growing reputation for being a bit of a fako. This is terribly unfair because I do care. Deeply. I just happen to care while flying privately and living extremely well. Some critics are calling me a hypocrite. How can I persuade people I’m still a genuine, values-led person and not just a rich man in artisanal facial hair? Yours, Misunderstood at Altitude

Dear Misunderstood At Altitude
Let’s consult the specialists:

💈 Barber:
“Start by removing anything that says ‘rebellious founder in a craft-beer ad.’ You’re not fooling anyone. Ask for ‘hard-edged capitalist, nails clipped, hair neatly trimmed.’”

🎭 Acting coach:
“Less wounded sincerity. More plain speaking. If you sack people, don’t narrate it like a spiritual journey.”

🪞 Mirror consultant:
“Your problem isn’t that people can see the jet. It’s that they can also see the gap between the jet and the sermon.”

Old Tech To Help With ‘The Art of Conversation’
A new kids’ ‘dumb phone’ called the Tin Can is teaching children an almost forgotten skill: how to have an actual conversation. According to WIRED, some kids initially rang people just to say “hi” and then sat there, apparently stunned by the requirement to keep talking. Honestly, fair enough, they’re only children. What’s less excusable is how many adults in tech still communicate the same way: abrupt, transactional, and visibly alarmed by human follow-up questions. Perhaps the Tin Can shouldn’t stop at kids. A few could be shipped directly to engineering floors, founder hubs and product teams as a conversational recovery device.

Empathy: Has its uses

^{BIN THIS…}

One of the most irritating habits in business communication is piling up descriptive words in the hope that quantity will somehow produce meaning. It doesn’t. It produces verbal sludge. Take this kind of consultancy line: “We partner with organisations to create ethical, intelligent, adaptable and seamless AI strategies that drive innovation and collaboration, thus elevating capability and unlocking long-term competitive advantage.” Sounds impressive, says very little. Bin the adjective avalanche. Say one clear thing well. Readers don’t need your overblown wordfest. They need to know what you actually do.

Know someone who lives for this kind of nonsense? Forward this email to them and help me spread the dysfunction.

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