I Hate Myself Less and Less Every Day
I Hate Myself Less and Less Every Day
We spend $20k/month on snacks and alcohol at L2. At my first job, Morgan Stanley, I had (no joke) a chair thrown at me (I deserved it) and my boss wore suspenders every day (nobody deserves that). BTW, Stephen Dworkin and Rob Larkins, I trust / hope you are miserable (i.e. still in i-banking).
The more time I spend with the young people at L2, the less I hate myself and L2. It’s clear a firm’s ability to attract the best human capital is becoming as important, maybe more, than attracting customers or capital (both will happen if you have the right people). A firm’s ability to attract top-tier talent and net retention, relative to peer group and other sectors, is a decent forward-looking indicator of a company’s prospects.
We scraped LinkedIn to determine Human Capital IQ of firms — net retention, backgrounds of people they get, etc. Fast Company covered it here.
Some findings:
— Nike gets a fraction of the inbound interest of Google/Amazon/Facebook. Nike is likely an awesome place to work, but it ain’t digital…and the boys/girls want to hang with zeroes and ones…full stop.
— The icons of yesterday in creative (WPP/Omnicom/Publicis) are so…yesterday. WPP has hemorrhaged 2000+ people to Google. How many people has WPP nabbed back from Google? 200. That number is misleading as many of those 200 were “interns” or “student ambassadors” at Google before joining WPP. Or put another way, the people WPP is getting from Google are interns who weren’t offered jobs.
Hollywood’s Algorithm for Likability
A Friday night ticket to see see a sci-fi movie at the i-pic and edibles… a few of my favorite things. However, I found Arrival boring and manipulative. Hollywood has decided the algorithm for likability is simple:
— Somebody hot (e.g. Charles Bronson, Mel Gibson, Benicio Del Toro — so caliente — Sandra Bullock, Amy Adams); and then (this is the key part)
— Kill their kids
So, that’s not the interesting part. The 411 is how characters respond, by gender. The dudes begin shooting, gutting, and strangling in an orgy of violence. The women turn to science and start fixing space stations or helping us speak to aliens. So, if life imitates art, we can posit a couple things:
— Danny Glover will likely be someone’s VP in 2020; and
— We need more female leaders
And…
NYT subscriptions have soared since the election as people recognize news is, by definition, not supposed to be bullshit. Arthur Sulzberger sent me an email this afternoon letting me know my Sunday home delivery of the Gray Lady will now cost $500/year. I did not update my address and have not received it for over a year.
Worth it.
Consumer Behavior “it” boy Professor Adam Alter digs into how tech firms make things addictive.
Gucci unseats Burberry for top spot in L2 Digital IQ Index: Fashion. I welcome this news as I am so sick of Burberry pimping their digital competence I want to puke every time I see a trench.
Instagram is besting big sister FB re celebrity mentions. Check out which celebrities are mentioned by brands most often and inspire greatest lift.
Scott
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