Off With Your Head Count
Microsoft wants to cut labor costs, streamers want your money, and Rupert Murdoch doesn’t want all his kids
PARTNERSHIPS | COMMUNITY | PODCAST | FRIENDS
It’s time for Tuesday, TFP fam. Taylor Swift’s The Eras Tour came to a close on Sunday night after a whopping 149 shows. As the dust settles, the artist can now boast not only the highest-grossing tour of all time but also the first to surpass $2 billion in revenue (the tour made $2,077,618,725 from a total attendance of 10,168,008 fans, to be exact). But here’s a fun fact: TSwift gave $197 million in bonuses to tour employees, including lighting and sound techs, backup dancers, and wardrobe assistants. We stan the generosity.
DAILY TOP TRENDS
|
|
Microsoft Says The Quiet Part Out Loud
Microsoft is actively pitching that its Copilot AI system will help enterprise customers save money on labor costs — aka not needing to hire more people or giving the ability to lay off existing staff.
Why It Hurts: Tech giants have been trying not to advertise the disruption that their systems could have on company head counts — typically, one of the most expensive line items of any firm. But with Microsoft breaking the seal, expect other companies to gladly follow along.
Between the Code: Jared Spataro, chief marketing officer for Copilot, wants you to know that spending more on AI means you’ll need to spend less on employees.
Microsoft has already deployed Copilot across its own sales and customer support teams, allowing it to keep its sales growth despite laying off 10,000 workers.
British fintech company Finastra used Copilot to build a recent marketing campaign, which allowed it to keep the campaign in-house instead of hiring an outside agency.
Semiconductor giant Broadcom is using Copilot to run its IT help desk, allowing it to keep its human head count under 20 people and save the company millions of dollars.
Bell Canada has put chatbots in its customer call center, contributing to $20 million in “labor cost savings.”
Closing Thoughts: Big Tech’s change of heart comes as the market hits an inflection point. Businesses want evidence that dropping money on chatbots will transform their bottom line — not fizzle out like the metaverse or NFTs. Tech giants are in a deep hole with how much they’ve spent on building out the infrastructure of AI systems, so they’re trying to deliver the hard sale to recoup that investment… and then some. As these two forces collide, expect swaths of the workforce to become automated and remaining workers to be saddled with higher expectations for productivity.
Alternate Perspective: AI systems are pretty nifty and all, but they really need a human touch… and the tech is launching new types of positions. The times they are a-changin’.
Together with Superplastic
Act Fast: New Superplastic x Greg Mike Collectible Just Dropped

Renowned street artist Greg Mike, famous for his bold colors and larger-than-life characters, has captivated audiences worldwide — from the streets of Atlanta to galleries in New York, Paris, Shanghai, and more.
Now get this: Our friends at Superplastic just dropped the hottest collab with Greg Mike with the epic SuperKranky collection.
Made with Superplastic’s top-tier quality and featuring Greg Mike’s iconic flower and eye-popping colors, it’s more than just a toy — it’s a work of art.
Whether you’re a first-time collector or a lifelong disciple, this is your chance to own a piece of Greg Mike’s visionary universe.
Streaming Chooses Profits Over People
A new study by Ampere Analysis found that the new streaming ecosystem will be defined by profit growth, while subscriber growth hits the brakes — or, as we like to call it, welcome to a maturing industry.
The Big Picture: Hollywood lost billions of dollars in the transition to streaming to catch up with Netflix, while Wall Street stopped rewarding subscriber growth as a key metric for success. For streamers, a coming era of profits is the light at the end of the tunnel as the backbone of cable revenue collapses.
Behind the Scenes: Ad tiers, password crackdowns, bundling, budget tightening, and the end of Peak TV is finally turning streaming into a moneymaker.
Ampere found that revenue will outpace subscriber growth by 3x over the next five years — leading to roughly 30% more revenue overall.
By 2029, the global SVOD market will surpass $190 billion… with Netflix making up about a third of that projection. Whoa.
$22 billion of that number will come from ad sales as more people sign up for lower-cost, ad-supported tiers.
Closing Credits: All of that’s not to say there won’t be a significant number of new subscribers. Ampere estimates that subscribers will grow by an estimated 200 million people (mostly in the Asia-Pacific region) to a total of two billion people. That’s a major contrast to the growth of the past five, which saw subscriber counts double (COVID really supercharged things). Still, that’s roughly a quarter of the population of Earth. Think about that.
Together with Cizzle Bio
Lung cancer is the deadliest cancer worldwide.
Cizzle Biotech’s 95% accurate early detection blood test identifies lung cancer at the most treatable stage. Support our patented solution to improve survival rates.
Read the Offering information carefully before investing. It contains details of the issuer’s business, risks, charges, expenses, and other information, which should be considered before investing. Obtain a Form C and Offering Memorandum at invest.cizzlebio.com
DEEP DIVES
Read: Vulture profiles legendary comic actor Mike Myers in a career-spanning interview.
Watch: Complex posted its hip-hop heavyweights conversation between Snoop Dogg and Dr. Dre, which took place at ComplexCon last month.
Listen: WSJ chats with Toast CEO Aman Narang about how the restaurant industry is making a record comeback.
Do you have cable? |
84.1% of you voted Yes in yesterday’s poll: Would you use a tool that shows you both sides of a news story?
“Already do.”
“Understanding the implicit bias in media is valuable, but using AI to try to make some sort of ‘both sides are valuable’ counter-argument to an existing piece seems like a bad idea, opening the door to errors and misinformation. Better to cultivate multiple perspectives from across the media spectrum, like Tangle or Ground News.”
“But I would ALWAYS doubt the accuracy of the tool itself.”
“Yes, but at its core, there really shouldn’t be a need for it. Newsrooms need to just stick to the facts on the ground and quit purposefully leaving out context or injecting their own ideological biases into every story.”
“Life is too short to cover all the biases.”
“How can there only be two sides? Seems limiting.”
Let’s keep the conversation going. Join our Poll Of The Day newsletter, so your opinions can shine. Discover how your views line up with your peers’, check out cool insights, and have some fun. It’s data with personality.
QUICK HITS
→ Entertainment / Media
🏆 The Golden Globe nominees were announced, with Netflix’s Emilia Pérez leading the pack with 10 nominations — the most ever for a movie competing in the comedy/musical category.
🏛️ Rupert Murdoch failed to reorganize his family trust to put control of News Corp. and Fox Corp. solely under his son Lachlan, which gives his other three children equal stake.
🏈 Netflix announced its on-air talent for its Christmas Day NFL games, including comedian Nate Bargatze, Super Bowl-winning QB Drew Brees, and future Hall of Famer J.J. Watt.
→ Technology
🎞️ On the heels of Google releasing its own AI video generator, OpenAI has publicly rolled out Sora.
🎮 Apple is reportedly working with Sony to bring its games — and gaming controller — to the struggling Vision Pro.
📱 India may soon be the hub for manufacturing Apple and Samsung smartphones, taking over from China.
→ Creator Economy
🤳 TikTok creators are already prepping for what looks like an inevitable shutdown of the app in the US.
🤖 Reddit is testing a conversational AI search tool after the platform has become one of the most popular places for AI companies to scrape data.
💰 MrBeast goes big no matter what he does: he built a $14 million city for his upcoming competition show.
Let us know how we are doing... |
PARTNERSHIPS | COMMUNITY | PODCAST | FRIENDS
Today’s email was written by David Vendrell.
Edited by Nick Comney. Copy edited by Kait Cunniff.
Published by Darline Salazar.
Reply