“Motivation is the art of getting people to do what you want them to do because they want to do it.” – Dwight D. Eisenhower, 34th President of the United States
End of an era for YouTube CEO
Last week, Susan Wojcicki, Google’s 16th employee and current CEO of Google-owned YouTube, stepped down after 25 years of service. Susan has had a historic run. She started her Google chapter by renting out her Silicon Valley garage to Larry & Sergey (how cinematic is that!). And she’s now one of the most powerful persons in tech. To put her in context, if YouTube were a standalone company, it would be nearly as large as Netflix in terms of revenue.
Counterintuitively, one of the best ways to judge a leader is by what happens when they leave. Does everything fall apart or did they build a sturdy enterprise? Susan pays a nod to this in her goodbye note: “I feel able to do this because we have an incredible leadership team in place at YouTube.”
Accelerator vs. Brakes
“Tesla Inc. is recalling 362,800 vehicles equipped with its high-profile advanced-driver assistance feature, a technology marketed as Full Self-Driving Beta, in response to regulatory pressure, the U.S. top car-safety agency said.” (WSJ)
It’s interesting to track the natural tension between technology innovation and ensuring public safety. Autonomous driving is possibly one of the most important software developments over the last decade and Elon doesn’t like the sensationalist negative press. “The word ‘recall’ for an over-the-air software update is anachronistic and just flat wrong!” (His tweet). We have to admit he has a point.
In other news…Academy Awards betting begins
Per Vegas Insider, Oscar’s betting odds are starting to settle ahead of the awards in a few weeks. Here are odds for Best Picture:
Everything Everywhere All At Once (69% odds)
The Banshees of Inisherin (18%)
Top Gun Maverick (12%)
The Fabelmans (9%)
Avatar: The Way of Water (3%)
In case you’re wondering, Brendan Fraser (The Whale) & Cate Blanchett (Tar) both have 60% odds of winning Best Actor & Best Actress, respectively.
Hope you had a good holiday weekend.
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