The sequel

This week: having fun (actually) staying poor, Jeff Bezos' hair, and Shark Tank

The first newsletter was good enough that I was renewed for a second season. Thanks to all who took the time to read the first one.

As a reminder, I’m Chris Bakke, a Twitterer, and the CEO of Laskie - the best hiring platform for tech talent. I enjoy writing about hiring, careers, investing, finance, web5, and tech.

Let’s dive into the good, the bad, and the ugly from this week, and as always (for two weeks running now) we’ll flip it so we don’t end the newsletter on a sad note.

The ugly:

• Great first half of the year, everyone (assuming you shorted the entire market). We just experienced the worst first half of the S&P500 since 1970. Time to sell off your last $77 of Solana, donate your “HAVE FUN STAYING POOR” hat, put your Miami apartment up for a sublease, buy a discount Spirit Air flight, move back in with your parents in the midwest, and get a real job.

• The NFT NYC event (aka Digital Ed Hardy Conf 2022) wrapped up last week. The coverage was so funny that I wasn’t sure whether to bucket this as ugly or good.

The bad:

• Amazon is testing the ability for Alexa devices to “one day be able to speak to you in the voice of deceased friends, family or loved ones.” Finally, a way for Jeff Bezos to reconnect with his long lost hair.

• Does the world just feel slightly off to you? Likely because Elon Musk hasn’t tweeted in 11 days. Thousands of people who make owning a Model 3 their entire personality are down horrifically.

The good:

• Mark Cuban’s been in the news. No, no. Not for trading $25,000 and a Shark Tank appearance for 55% of someone’s company. Something good this time. He co-founded CostPlus Drugs that helps people save thousands of dollars on their common medications. In a world where the typical career path is billionaire → launch yourself into space - this is cool to see:

  

• Microsoft has agreed to stop enforcing noncompetes and publish salary ranges for all roles by next January. This is a massive step in the right direction for job seekers, and I expect this to nudge other large employers to do the same. One of these days, we’ll live in a world where we learn about the salary before the 4th interview at most jobs.

Okay, that’s all.

Thanks for reading, and give me a shout on Twitter if you liked anything about this newsletter. As Twitter starts to clean up the bot accounts who usually like my Tweets, I am becoming desperate for attention on social media.

See you next week.

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