🔎 Crazy Crypto, Multi-company Musk and Shorter work weeks

Welcome to The Jungle: We are the pap to your vleis!

Here’s what Tarzan has for you today:

• Corruption & Crypto: Fraudsters are getting thrown in the clink!

• Multi-company Musk: Musk has more companies than I have underwear!!

• Wilting Work Week: Is a shorter work week on the cards for SA?

Crypto is still a thing??

While busy going through a bear market, crypto has quietly been sitting in the corner like an introvert on their first day of school.

But 2 note-worthy rulings were made last week:

1 - Ripple (XRP) beat the SEC.. kind of..

Well, this is the first time a crypto company has won a court ruling. After being sued by the SEC for selling unregistered securities, a legal battle ensued, and by September 2022, the SEC and Ripple Labs had agreed to bypass a trial and allow a judge to issue a summary judgment based on the evidence submitted.

The judge ruled that XRP is not a security and the sale of XRP on crypto exchanges is not a securities offering.

This is a big win for crypto and could provide the green light for similar cryptocurrencies to continue selling on exchanges over the near future.

2 - A major crypto player finally got arrested

Alex Mashinsky, CEO of Celsius has been arrested and is facing 7 charges including securities fraud, commodities fraud and wire fraud - this dude lovesd his fraud!

Here are some of the actions Alex is getting accused of:

• Celsius spent $90M buying their own CEL token to inflate the price.

• Celsius lied about their risk management strategies in place.

• Mashinky made false and misleading statements about Celsius’s safety to encourage investors to deposit billions of dollars onto the platform.

• As Celsius was losing everything, Mashinsky lied about it all. They kept using phrases like "Pour Yourself a Cup of Profits" and "Profits in your Pocket" to promote their products.

The dirtbag was released on $40 million and has pled not guilty.

Crypto definitely has an uphill battle but with all these court cases and arrests, more regulation enters the ecosystem and HOPEFULLY allows for safer and better cryptocurrencies.

Teasers for the office

Office teasers are here for Tarzan to help you stand out in the office or through virtual interaction with your colleagues - it’s a pleasure!

For those Star Trek nerds - the opening of doors on the starships makes a distinctive whooshing sound - ever wonder what that sound actually is?

The sound is a recording of a toilet flushing! Sonworks Collection admitted that they had to create futuristic-sounding doors. They use multiple techniques to create these sounds with one of the weirdest ones being a toilet flushing. Here’s a video of Star Trek door - can you hear the toilet?

Musk has more companies than Tarzan has underwear!!

Musk started another company! Thats not the first and probably not the last time you will hear (read) that!

This time, xAI. If you can’t tell by the title, it’s an AI company and has launched to be a direct competitor to OpenAI which created ChatGPT.

What’s weird is that Musk was a founder of OpenAI back in the day but had to bounce because it conflicted with Tesla - so what’s new now?

Here’s the low-down:

• March 2023: Musk trolled OpenAI for not being open and truthful about their plans for the future of AI - stating he started OpenAI to be a non-profit and is now a closed source max-profit company

• April 2023: he told us he was working on “TruthGPT” - an A.I chatbot with heavy regulation and no bias. AKA what he believes OpenAI failed to do

• Out of the blue 2023: xAI is launched! Musk says “The goal of the company is to understand the true nature of the universe”

Is it just me or what the hell does that mean?

Well, Tarzan doesn’t know what the company is necessarily going to do or if ChatGPT should start shaking in their boots but we do know:

• The Team: xAI is made up of top talent from OpenAI, Google and Tesla.

• The Data: Musk is leveraging data from one of his other companies, Twitter.

Let’s see what happens going forward but if there is one thing Tarzan knows, its to never bet against Elon!

Is the 4-day work week right for South Africa?

Don’t hate Tarzan for this one! I have a controversial view.

Let me get you up to speed:

• Many countries have been conducting 4-day workweek trials.

• The general consensus is that 4-day workweeks are the bomb! 💣

•  88% believe the shortened work week will improve work-life balance and 71% believed that it can help improve Talent Retention.

Those 2 words highlighted in bold above is where Tarzan starts to squint curiously.

Here’s some things to ponder on:

1. You’re leaving meat on the bone! If you are working 1 day less, no matter how much you squeeze into those 4 days - there will be someone else coming in to steal your thunder by working that extra day. If you are okay with that, that’s also great!

2. Choosing a job because it offers you a day less a week - do you really like what you do if that is the reason you choose a job?

3. companies start offering 4-day workweeks - do you really think they arent reducing salaries within the near future too? From a company’s POV, its the perfect storm - keep your employees happy with 3 day weekends and reduce employee costs because “hey, they’re not working the full week”.

Tarzan has a better alternative, but there’s a catch - Is your job operational? (ie. is your day-to-day work dependent directly on client actions - for example: customer support)

If so, then sorry pal - there is no hope for a change from the 9-5 working hours.

BUUUT, if your every minute is less dependent on immediate customer action, employees should not be forced / peer pressured into 9-5 work. Your job should fit one of 2 types:

1. Target-based - meaning it doesn’t matter how many hours you put in, as long as you hit that target; or

2. Time-based - you have to work 40 hours a week.

Whether you are time-based or target-based, you should be allowed complete flexibility as to how you reasonably use your time in the week.

What do you think? Reply to this email - best answer receives a mention and a Takealot voucher.

ICYMI

⚡Relief from Stage 6 power cuts on its way - Are you sure about that?

💰Crypto suffers $600m cybercrime blow in first half of 2023 - we can never have anything nice!

⛴Transnet selects international partner for upgrade of flagship Durban terminal - Spoiler: the international partner is International Container Terminal Services (ICTSI)

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