^{CHITTER CHATTER}

We Tried to Kill Spreadsheets. We Failed.

Pulley, the cap-table software startup that raised more than US$50 million to help companies manage equity without relying on spreadsheets, is shutting down. Its customers are being handed over to rival Carta. The best part? A former employee reportedly said Pulley’s real competition was never Carta. It was spreadsheets. So after millions in venture funding, years of product development and an entire SaaS category built around replacing them, spreadsheets are still here. Pulley isn’t. Excel: 1. Venture capital: 0.

Oracle: Good Morning. You No Longer Work Here.

Oracle employees reportedly received emails around 6 am telling them that the same day would be their last working day. At least they added a bit of humanity, “We are grateful for your dedication, hard work, and the impact you have made during your time with us.” Completely believable and sincere of course. All part of the company’s continuing restructure while pouring billions into AI infrastructure.

Playing to The Theatre of Fear

In the last 10 days, the biggest AI players have been stoking fear about the dangers of rogue AI. Anthropic’s Dario Amodei has called for “pacing” frontier AI development. Sam Altman agreed. Elon Musk said Amodei was right. Demis Hassabis has also backed greater caution. The risk of AI running amok may be real. But this article suggests another possibility: the safety measures these companies are advocating, including expensive independent model evaluations, could create a formidable barrier to entry. Smaller AI labs and open-model developers may struggle to afford the testing and compliance costs that OpenAI, Anthropic and Google can absorb. Which begs the question: “Who benefits if everyone becomes sufficiently frightened?”

Tech Fails

The Board Tried to Oust the CEO. They Didn’t Succeed.

Another tech despot leader survives a metaphorical beheading. The board of Automattic, the company behind WordPress.com put founder and CEO Matt Mullenweg on paid leave after an attempt to remove him. Thirty-three hours and 20 minutes later, he was back. Days later, the three board members involved in putting him on leave had all departed. TechCrunch reported that two resigned and Mullenweg removed the third. Yet the latest melodrama in a series of absurd goings-on at the company. During Mullenweg’s increasingly personal war with hosting company WP Engine, Automattic offered employees who disagreed with his approach six months’ pay or US$30,000 to leave. 159 took the offer.

Then came the trolling. WordPress.org introduced a login box requiring users to declare they weren’t affiliated with WP Engine. A court ordered it removed. So it was replaced with another compulsory box: “Pineapple is delicious on pizza.” No tick. No login. There have also been reported loyalty checks, watermarked internal messages designed to identify leakers and various public skirmishes. And after surviving his brief removal this month, Mullenweg published a post titled “Major Life Announcement.” He was buying a tugboat.

You can’t make this stuff up. At Automattic, it’s just another day at the office.

Weird Tech

Robots Protesting Against Robots

Around 30 robots marched outside Poland’s digital affairs ministry demanding tougher AI rules to protect human jobs. Yes, humans organised it. But robots protesting against robots taking people’s jobs feels both absurd and sobering.

^SUBTEXT

Tech Waffle Torture

The Waffle: "After careful consideration of Oracle's current business needs, we have made the decision to eliminate your role as part of a broader organizational change. As a result, today is your last working day.” Business Insider

Translation:
“We’ve carefully concluded that you’re a cost we need to eliminate immediately. To be very clear, your role is kaput. We’ve got bigger fish to fry and have no time to waste, so pack your shit and get the hell out of here.”

A condition affecting AI leaders who feel compelled to warn that the technology they’re building may become dangerously powerful, while continuing to build more powerful versions of it. Symptoms include increasingly apocalyptic interviews, solemn calls for restraint, and absolutely no intention of letting a competitor get there first. Treatment: Difficult. Slowing down may result in someone else speeding up.

Model Collapse: When AI systems are trained on too much AI-generated material, their outputs can become less accurate, less diverse and progressively worse. In management terms: everyone keeps rewriting the same strategy deck until the original idea disappears and only buzzwords survive.

^{THE SHALLOW END}

AI Actress Starts Press Tour. Then Malfunctions.

AI actress Tilly Norwood is on a press tour for her new film and can reportedly handle 75 interviews at once. There’s just one problem. During an interview with Piers Morgan and Tom Conti, she malfunctioned and suddenly started speaking Chinese. No big deal, just a little hiccup and wires getting crossed. 😊

Dear Dr Comms

I’m a basic robot with big dreams. I want to eradicate cancer and world hunger, become a famous actor, race cars, surf 20-metre waves and eventually become President of the World. My concern is humans. They’re petty, territorial and easily threatened by anyone more capable than them. How do I stop them holding me back? Yours, Ambotious

Dear Ambotious
Let’s ask three people who understand ambition, obstacles and humans getting in the way.

🧱 The Concreter
“Big plans are fine. But if the base is rubbish, the whole thing cracks. Maybe become a decent actor before President of the World. It’s been successfully done before.”

🍳 The Commercial Cook
“Forget eradicating world hunger for a minute. Can you reliably feed 300 people by noon without poisoning anyone? Start there.”

🚧 Highway Traffic Controller
“You can have all the power in the world, mate. If humans are standing there holding a STOP sign, you stop. The trick is getting them to turn it around.”

Behind the Mask: We’re safe from robots. It’s the not-so-human people we have to worry about.

^{BIN THIS…}

“Intelligent, dynamic, composable.”
“Application and semantic intelligence.”
“Trusted, unified context.”

All from one Salesforce announcement.

I guess saying, “it does clever AI things with your business data,” is too pedestrian.

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

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