Bezos, Buffett, and Dimon walk into a bar…

Commence disruption: Bezos, Buffett, and Dimon are getting into healthcare

It was only a matter of time until Amazon tried their hand at one of, if not the most, complicated industries on the planet.

And now it’s happening: Jeff Bezos is teaming up with a real nerd herd of corporate kings in Berkshire Hathaway and JPMorgan to launch an independent healthcare company, aimed at providing cheaper coverage to their nearly 1m collective US employees.

The move is already a major headache for traditional US healthcare providers (within the first 2 hours of the announcement, the market value of 10 large health insurance and pharmacy stocks dropped by a combined $30B).

Just beggin’ to be disrupted

With the rise of corporate healthcare costs, the industry has been askin’ for a shake-up over the last few years.

The total cost of healthcare per worker for employers has risen nearly 3% this year (its 6th consecutive year of small upticks), in return pushing up the costs for what employees have to pay out of pocket.

Problem is, healthcare costs have risen faster than wages and inflation. That means premiums for employer-provided insurance plans have shot up 19%, while employee pay has increased only 12%.

Now the bigwigs are stepping in

Warren Buffett called the rapid rise in healthcare costs a “hungry tapeworm on the American economy,” while Bezos explained fixing the healthcare industry will require “talented experts” and a “beginner’s mind.”

Sure, cutting healthcare costs for their employees means cutting costs for themselves, so it’s not all pure intentions from Bezos and the gang.

But, when 3 of titans of corporate America make a move like this, people listen -- and if Bezos and co’s personal cost-cutting interests happen to benefit 950k people between the 3 companies worldwide, then good on them.

The million dollar question: can they do it?

There are (justifiably so) a ton of skeptics. Their actual plan to carry out this daunting task remains endlessly vague, leaving many people wondering what the h*ll any of this actually means.

Will Amazon hospitals soon be a thing? Are we going to start picking up medicine at Whole Foods? Is Jeff Bezos a nicer Lex Luthor? Stay tuned.

Doggy king, Wag, raises $300m from SoftBank

Put down your leashes, because the dog-walking startup Wag has raised $300m from SoftBank Vision Fund.

This investment marks yet another expensive deal from ol’ Softy (honestly, at this point, their cash flow seems truly endless), and it makes them a 45% owner in the pup-care business.

It also gives them a ton of control in the process

Being behind the entire deal reportedly gives SoftBank an “enormous” influence over at Wag. Exhibit A: the fact that the deal hinged on Wag’s assurance to SoftBank that they would find a new, more seasoned CEO.

With two shakes of a dog’s hind legs, Wag canned their co-founder Josh Viner and brought on former LifeLock CEO Hilary Schneider as their new chief executive (though, the Viner family claims the two developments had “nothing to do” with each other).

Why all this for a dog-walking company?

When asked what what he sees in Wag, one of SoftBank’s senior investors said “Wag is a clear leader in the rapidly growing global market for pet care services.”

SoftBank continues to throw money at the top companies of emerging, somewhat untapped, fields, like the Indoor farming company Plenty, or drug research companies like Roivant… and now dog-walking.

Because when you can afford the best, why get the off-brand?

The AI ‘greaseman’ strikes out on his own

If there’s a large-scale AI undertaking in the works, it’s likely that Andrew Ng has had a hand in it.

To put it in Ocean’s Eleven terms, he’s the go-to “greaseman” for big tech companies looking to solve some of the biggest questions in AI. AKA, he can weasel his way around any deep learning obstacle out there.

Now, he’s doing his biggest “job” yet: he’s starting a $175m fund… for his own ideas.

And he did it without breaking a sweat

In Ng’s words, investors are so eager to get a piece of the AI action that “our fundraising process was very painless.”

(His track record as the chief scientist at Chinese internet giant Baidu, and creator of Google’s deep learning project, Google Brain, probably didn’t hurt, either…)

Now, Ng has big guns like NEA, Sequoia, Greylock, and (of course) SoftBank on board -- all attracted by his promise that AI businesses are “more repeatable than people think,” and that he can build them faster than anyone.

To that end, the fund will operate more as an incubator for Ng’s projects, rather than an investing arm for outside startups.

Ng’s been grooming the talent -- now he has the resources to recruit

Ng’s already launched Deeplearning.ai, an online curriculum of classes on things like “deep neural networks” to fill the shortage of AI engineers, which has made it notoriously difficult to get deep learning startups off the ground.

But, niche engineers don’t come cheap -- and with this extra funding, he’ll actually be able to pay their $500k salaries.

ENTER THE CUBE: Wall Box is a clear, soundproof office that solves… what?

At the turn of the millennium, open offices were heralded as the solution to “closed-door,” corner office culture.

But, as many of you have probably experienced, this newfound freedom-of-floorplan makes it d*mn near impossible to take an uninterrupted phone call, or just get some dang peace and quiet.

So, in a post-open-office dystopia, where do we turn?

A smaller, see-through office.

WALL BOX (because “phone booth” was already taken)

Created by interior design company VANK (a brand name meant to be whispered in an echo-y room), Wall Boxes are portable, soundproofed chambers with glass walls, built for up to 6 people.

The smallest Wall Box has a mere 3x4 footprint -- small enough to induce claustrophobia, yet large enough (if the promo photos are to be believed) to practice some solo yoga. Perfect.

And, they’re not the only ones pitching this idea. You can buy a similar (albeit less aesthetically pleasing) knockoff of the WB for ~$3k on Alibaba.

Look, we get it, there’s no perfect solution

Gotta give VANK credit, they’ve managed to make a fish tank look like a pretty chill place to hold a meeting, and solved the problem of Sales interrupting your IT call with their victory gong again.

But, in a world where private space is hard to come by, a few opaque conference rooms are just fine with us.

A series in which The Hustle explains things in the tech and business world that don’t seem to make a whole lot of sense.

What the hell is the $1 CEO salary?

In recent decades, a curious trend has emerged: dozens of top tech CEOs -- including the likes of Larry Page (Alphabet, Inc.), Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook) and Jeremy Stoppelman (Yelp) -- have slashed their salary to a measly $1.

The $1 CEO salary is often held as a shining example of the “spirit of sacrifice” in business: a company-first decision that aligns a leader’s interests with those of his or her corporation.

But data tells us another story. Here’s the GIF to break it down (share it with the people who need to know here):

Curious about the studies cited in the GIF above? Links here, here, here, here, here… and here.

-- Zack, GIFer-in-residence

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