In today’s newsletter we discuss Mean Girls cast stars in Walmart Black Friday ad, paying 6% real estate commission is old school, Elon Musk’s xAI launches AI chatbot named Grok (what could possibly go wrong), is Ripple getting ready to IPO, and YouTube is out new gateway drug to live sports.

Business & Real Estate

Who thinks the antiquated practice of paying both the buyer and the seller’s real estate agents a commission of 6% is old school? This guy! Having bought and sold a few houses I just counted up how much I’ve spent in commissions and it could actually buy a whole new house. That’s insane to think about.

Apparently I’m not the only one who feels this way. A Missouri court last week ruled that the National Association of Realtors (NAR) and “two brokerage firms, Homeservices of America and Keller Williams Realty, were liable for $1.8 billion in damages for conspiring to keep commissions artificially high, may mark the beginning of the end of how homes are bought and sold.”

Typically the commission on the sale of a house has “been around 6% of the sale price, usually with a 3% split for the buyer’s and seller’s agent.”

After a $1.8 billion verdict, the clock is ticking on the 6% real estate commission

Tech & AI

Elon Musk’s new xAI startup venture has launched its first AI chatbot named Grok to challenge ChatGPT.

File this under “What could possibly go wrong?”, but Elon Musk’s new AI chatbot Grok has been modeled after “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”, and It’s supposed to have “a bit of wit,” “a rebellious streak” and it should answer the “spicy questions” that other AI might dodge - so essentially Elon Musk modeled his AI chatbot after himself!

xAI is entering an already crowded industry, with competitors including the wildly popular OpenAI, Inflection who has been funded by Microsoft, Nvidia and billionaires Reid Hoffman, Bill Gates and Eric Schmidt, and Anthropic which has been funded by both Google and Amazon.

The AI chatbot industry is already a $5.4 billion dollar market as of 2023, and is expected to grow to $15.5 billion by 2028, with a CAGR of 23.3%.

Elon Musk debuts 'Grok' AI bot to rival ChatGPT, others

Crypto

Even though mainstream media will tell you that the crypto market is going through a Crypto Winter, there are signs that things may be thawing a bit. To date there haven’t been any crypto currency companies that have gone public, as in IPO’ed, but Ripple, the company behind XRP, has been making moves that has some people believing they are gearing up to go public.

Full disclosure: I’m a hodler of XRP

This article does a good job of laying out the facts, and then allowing readers like you to draw your own conclusions. Some of the moves Ripple have been making include:

• Ripple has been active in the M&A markets in the last year, which is common for companies before they go public.

• Many of the roles that Ripple has been hiring for are indicative of companies that are staffing up to be public facing companies, including roles for International Tax and Financial Risk.

• “Ripple’s protracted legal case with the U.S. regulator is gradually ending with successive victories against the SEC, such as the recent dismissal of the charges against Ripple’s executives. Therefore, the hindrances to Ripple going public via an initial public offering soon have lowered.”

Here Are Top Signs that Ripple is Preparing to Go Public with an IPO

Entertainment

Walmart’s Black Friday holiday ad is so Fetch!

Lindsay Lohan, Amanda Seyfried, Lacey Chabert, Daniel Franzese and Rajiv Surendra reprised their “Mean Girls” roles from the 2004 hit movie, with the only star missing from the ad being Rachel McAdams (who admittedly is too big of a start to appear in a Walmart ad IMO).

"Mean Girls" grossed $130 million worldwide at the box office. How big will this year’s holiday spending season be? “The National Retail Federation today forecast that holiday spending is expected to reach record levels during November and December and will grow between 3% and 4% over 2022 to between $957.3 billion and $966.6 billion.” Now that is Fetch!

‘Mean Girls’ stars Lindsay Lohan, Amanda Seyfried and more reunite for Black Friday ad

Sports

So I’m a cordcutter. Have been for about 3 years now. The 1st year was tough, not because we missed paying the astronomical fees for cable TV, TV guide, or a DVR (because we didn’t!). It was because between September-through-February we had to rely on an over-the-air antenna to pick up Football games, and hope the NY Giants games weren’t being shown on Fox, because our little antenna wouldn’t pick up those games. Sure, we’d miss Thursday night games that only aired on the NFL Network, but those games used to suck. Then Amazon Prime began airing games on Thursdays only on their network, and it just all became too much. So we got Google’s YouTubeTV, and couldn’t be happier! Sure, we already had Amazon Prime, so we figured out Thursday nights, but sometimes we’re traveling and didn’t want to bring that little over-the-air antenna with us.

It turns out millions of households have had the same intellectual battle between cutting the cable cord and getting a streaming service to watch sports. YouTube has spent $14 billion dollars betting on NFL Sunday Ticket. And through YouTubeTV I’ve also been able to watch real football (soccer) from around the world. For me YouTubeTV has been a gateway drug to sports, and it sounds like I’m not alone.

YouTube’s NFL Bet May Be About Becoming Sports Content Filter

So much news, so little time. Until tomorrow we’re signing out.

— Chris