Imagine the Smell

Good afternoon LPs,

The holidays are almost here. I’ve been struggling to decide what to get my family for gifts. So I think I’m going to go with my classic gift that never disappoints: WeWork-branded Patagonia vests.

Anyway, let’s get into today’s newsletter.

Hard and Fast News

fake headlines, real news

Hong Kong court convicts pro-democracy activist and mogul Jimmy Lai. Despite having more than 50,000 characters in Chinese, there is no combination that spells “freedom of the press,” according to a linguistic expert. (NPR)

World happiness skyrockets after McKinsey plots thousands of layoffs in consulting slowdown. “I’m so happy those consultants are being laid off; now they know how it feels,” said one of millions celebrating outside McKinsey offices in Manhattan Monday morning.  (Financial Post)

Roomba maker iRobot files for bankruptcy. “Despite TikTok videos of cats riding our product around homes garnering millions of views, we have been unable to turn a profit,” said the CFO in a shareholder call. (Reuters)

Imagine the Smell

Late last week, drama unfolded on X after Pash, the Head of AI at Cline, made a joke about the xAI hackathon smelling bad. 

At first, I didn’t see the problem. For one, I don’t see race. I didn’t even notice that this AI coding event was mostly Indians and Asians. 

And secondly, I thought it was a well-known fact that the smelliest professions, according to science, are, in no particular order:

1. Plumber

2. Sanitation worker

3. Software engineer 

To anyone who’s upset about this tweet. Let me ask you this. Have you ever been in a college dorm where 4 dudes share a room? Now, have you been in a dorm where 4 chicks share a room? Now answer this while being completely honest with yourself: which room smells worse? 

Now close your eyes and imagine it’s a room full of 300 dudes who took adderall, drank 4 Monster Energy drinks, stayed awake all night coding, and haven’t showered in 36 hours. If that mental image doesn’t make you want to bring back the KN95 mask policy, you’re lying to yourself. 

With that out of the way, I want to acknowledge that this guy could have been making fun of Indians for smelling bad. That’s a common stereotype. Unfortunately (or fortunately for him), none of us knows that for sure. Independent of race, this room would obviously smell like ass. 

Back to the story at hand. After this tweet, thousands of people dogpiled on Pash, including one of the investors in his startup. At first, Pash’s CEO came to his defense, tweeting this response: 

The drama should have ended there. But the internet mob wanted blood. They bombarded Cline with negative reviews, and a day later, the CEO announced he had fired Pash from Cline. 

This was a bitch move. There are a million reasons to fire your employees (like having a child, not working weekends, the list goes on), but this isn’t one of them.

Unfortunately, in the online world we live in today, this is one of the risks of having a public-facing company. 

Unfortunately, the tech world is now a game of politics and positioning. You used to build in your garage until you were worth a billion dollars. Now you’re obligated to post things on the internet, and if you post something that is 4/10 on the offensive scale (even if it's unintentional), you can be banished to Siberia. 

My recommendation? Build a landscaping company. Everyone expects you to be racist, and you’ll have better margins.

If you refer 5 people to Jabroni Capital, I’ll write you an unhinged LinkedIn recommendation and feature it in the newsletter.

Memes

I told you I had a good reason for not responding.

These guys do excellent work.

Option D is the only logical choice.

Song of the Day

Over the weekend, I rediscovered this song I used to love. Obviously, music taste is very mood-dependent. And lately I’ve been rather upbeat. But this song takes me back to when life was a bit more chaotic, and I was rather introspective.

Listen to the full Jabroni Capital playlist here.

Newsletter Feedback

I’d love your feedback on what sort of content you’d like to see or how you think I could improve :)

That’s all for this week folks.

Jack Kuveke (J.K.) | GP @ Jabroni Capital