As we inch toward the finish line of this year, let us toss this gentle grenade out there: good riddance, 2023. Peace out, inflation and geopolitical strife and the endless housing crises. And every fourth headline being about Taylor Swift and melodrama at X and that terrible HBO show starring The Weeknd, too. Today, we’re putting as much of it in the rearview as possible and looking ahead to 2024 — a year we’re certain we’ll also want to say “good riddance” to by, say, February.
In today’s email:
Top storylines for January: What’ll be top of mind when the world wakes from its slumber.
Big Tech power rankings: Who’s on top heading into 2024?
Here’s the weird stuff: Companies getting up to strange things in the new year.
👇 Listen: Our team makes some bold predictions on what’ll go down in 2024.
THE BIG IDEA
Your January 2024 primer: Mickey Mouse knockoffs, more strikes, and egg yikes
Happy New Year! Enjoy an impossibly grating election ad onslaught, the likes of which we’ve never seen before.
2023-12-29T00:00:00Z
Ben Berkley
If life on planet Earth didn’t jump the shark in 2023, then humanity at least sidled right up to the tank, made menacing eye contact with that toothy fish, saluted it with two middle fingers, then blew it a kiss and said, “See you soon.”
Next Tuesday, when much of the working world returns to its maddening tasks at hand, many subplots will already be picking up speed. Here’s a li’l smattering to help you hit the ground running:
The granddaddy of all public domain entrants, Mickey Mouse, arrives Monday
Disney will inevitably rage at whatever deranged art follows, but its 95 years of copyright protection for its iconic character (and Minnie Mouse, too) are up.
To be specific — and to avoid Disney’s cadre of lawyers, you’ll need to be — the nonvocal “Steamboat Willie” version is the only version of Mickey that’s fair game.
Also shared IP as of Jan. 1: Pooh’s pal Tigger and a bunch of silent films.
Sorry, execs, but union leaders are riding their wave of momentum into the new year
America saw 70 different weeklong-plus strikes by 100+ workers in 2023, with huge gains to show for it — ~1m union members scored 10%+ pay raises last year. That movement isn’t about to slow down.
Starbucks will resume talks with its workers’ union in January, Anheuser-Busch will try to avert a planned February strike by ~5k employees, and automakers… Well, if you’re not on notice, you should be. The United Auto Workers union, fresh off a win this fall, will attempt to organize ~150k more workers at plants run by major players including Toyota, Honda, and — drama incoming — Tesla.
Oh, great, egg prices are going back up again
A year after egg prices set records (and definitely not in the good “Look how cheap they are” way), they’re bound to spike all over again.
This is less an inflation thing and more a supply issue — Cal-Maine Foods, America’s biggest egg producer, is facing its first avian flu outbreak. But no matter the cause, few things sour a nation’s economic mood to start a year quite like price hikes on grocery essentials.
And so it begins…
January marks the first US presidential primary (specifically, Jan. 23 in New Hampshire), and the beginning of what’ll be a historically high year for political ad spending. 2024’s expected tab is ~$16B, up 31.2% from 2020’s unpleasantness. If so, American politics would, on its own, surpass all of Australia as the world’s 10th-biggest ad market. If you start a “U-S-A! U-S-A!” chant over that, we’ll scream.
Free Resource
The world of work is changing, y’all…
What do global leaders know about next year that you don’t, when it comes to DEI, mental health, and managing people?
On this episode of Truth, Lies, and Workplace Culture, we asked top honchos from L’Oreal, Mars, First Direct, Acas, and NHS England to explain the forces at play that are transforming work as we know it.
Forward-thinking corporate priorities:
Focusing on mental health
Creating inclusive spaces
Developing a shared purpose
Hiring exceptional managers
Self-care is pretty much all the rage. We are a highly break-trained people.
We’re living through peak engagement season right now, which means we’re about to live through peak wedding season. (Fun. Yay. Can’t wait.) Gently nudge lovebirds in the direction of this video explaining how Las Vegas became America’s quickie wedding capital and hopefully you can save everyone a few thousand bucks.
Add to your calendar
Our next email will have the latest headlines back in this spot, but what’s more fun, anyway: Looking back at what already happened, or looking into a crystal ball at what’s going to happen? We’re taking the latter...
January: The Dutch government will ban mobile phones, tablets, and smartwatches from classrooms in the Netherlands.
February: If the month feels longer than usual, it’s because it is. It’s a leap year, so keep an eye out for Feb. 29, which comes once every four years.
March: Taiwan will auction off three gigawatts of offshore wind power to lessen reliance on fossil fuels and boost its renewable energy sector.
April: Don’t miss the total solar eclipse in North America on Monday, April 8, since it’ll be the last one visible until 2044.
May: Cue the Pink Floyd — China’s Chang’e-6 mission will attempt to collect samples from the dark side of the moon.
June: Tech is moving on — three Barnes & Noble Nook e-reader models and Peloton’s oldest bike tablets will lose service in June 2024.
July: The Summer Olympics in Paris begin on July 26 and run through Aug. 11. In preparation, plush versions of the games’ weird mascot are about to be made at a 1k/day clip.
August: The USDA’s Smokey Bear turns 80 on Aug. 9 after decades of saying, “Only you can prevent wildfires.” Will this be the year he stops deflecting and finally takes some personal responsibility?
September: The estimated arrival of Apple’s iPhone 16.
October: If you didn’t make it to see Taylor Swift in 2023, don’t fret — her Eras Tour resumes in October 2024 for an additional 15 shows.
November: Four astronauts will board the first crewed mission to the moon in 51 years — including the first Black astronaut and the first female astronaut to make the trip — on the Artemis II mission.
December: The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim, a prequel to the award-dominating trilogy with $2.9B+ in box office receipts, hits theaters Dec. 13, 2024.
Don't miss this...
2023 was the year of artificial intelligence, and now that it's coming to an end, we’re recapping the top AI stories and sharing some predictions for 2024.
Who’s No. 1?
Big Tech power rankings: Where the 5 giants stand to start 2024
Why do sports teams get all the fun of griping about arbitrarily selected rankings?
2023-12-29T00:00:00Z
Ben Berkley
If sports teams can get slapped into power rankings every day, then why can’t our Big Tech behemoths — Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta, and Microsoft — get the same treatment?
They, too, deserve inconsequential power rankings based on arbitrary, super-subjective criteria.
That’s what we’ll do here, going simply by who’s got the best vibes headed into 2024…
1. Apple (Revenue: $89.5B in most recent quarterly earnings; Market cap: $3.06T as of 12/20)
It’s hard to argue with the numbers — Apple remains the world’s most valuable company, and by a pretty wide margin. Its market cap exceeds the GDP of Italy, Brazil, and Canada. Humanity runs on its tech. Also, big step down here, but Apple TV+ shows like “The After Party” and “Hijack” are super-underrated. Vibes have been excellent to date, but good energy can turn ugly quick: If the Vision Pro doesn’t hit, uh oh. If its next iPhone launch is met with a shrug, bigger uh oh. And if it can’t catch up on AI, there is no “uh oh” big enough. Its grasp on No. 1 feels tenuous.
2. Microsoft ($56.52B revenue; $2.78T cap)
It’s amazing what one good investment can do. Microsoft’s ~$13B commitment to OpenAI moved it atop the AI leaderboard, which, in 2023, was the leaderboard that mattered most. Its ChatGPT-infused products must deliver in 2024 to keep that perception going. But this is about current vibes — and when you’ve got an investment with $100B potential, vibes tend to be pretty immaculate.
3. Alphabet ($76.69B revenue; $1.76T cap)
Don’t mistake Alphabet’s middle-of-the-pack placement; the Google parent is perennially one good headline (or bad headline from its competitors) away from topping this list. There’s a lot to like, after all: YouTube is thedominant force in teen media consumption, Waymo’s expanding while top rival Cruise is in free fall, its cloud division is an underrated force, and its AI offerings are making loud footsteps right behind OpenAI.
4. Amazon ($143.08B revenue; $1.59T cap)
It’s got a strong lead in the cloud-computing sphere and it’s put up $1m+ in revenue per minute this year. And still, Amazon lands fourth? This feels unjust, but that’s the nature of power rankings for you. There are few demerits; it’s just hard to gauge vibes for a company doing so many things all at once.
5. Meta ($34.15B revenue; $902.18B cap)
There are other reasons behind this bottom-dwelling placement — like Meta’s Reality Labs unit losing $3.7B last quarter as the metaverse chase continues for some reason — but if you want to believe that this is our retribution for Mark Zuckerberg simply entertaining the notion of a cage match with Elon Musk earlier this year, all we’re going to do is shrug.
Buckle Up
Weirdo companies getting up to weirdo things in 2024
In 2024, we’re using AI to talk to animals, drones to deliver packages, and asteroids to get rich. Maybe.
2023-12-29T00:00:00Z
Juliet Bennett Rylah
If you thought 2023 was a strange one, good instincts — it really was. But 2024 is probably also going to be weird, with an increasing emphasis on AI and, hopefully, sustainability.
San Francisco-based startup Zipline’s Platform 2 drones are ready to drop packages of up to 8 pounds in select US cities in 2024, thanks to an FAA exemption from a long-standing rule requiring that human drone operators have a line of sight on their drones.
If you see one, you’ll notice it hovers ~300 feet above ground before lowering its payload via tether, a process that Zipline claims is 10x faster than car or truck delivery.
Sweetgreen is already a customer and we’re excited about sky salads, but not as excited as we’d be if they were delivering them via actual zip lines.
AstroForge is a California startup that wants to mine asteroids for platinum, which sounds like something the Tyrell Corp. would send replicants to do in Blade Runner.
Thus far, AstroForge hasn’t had much success, experiencing significant setbacks during its demo mission. Still, its second mission will launch in 2024 and, if all goes as planned, photograph an asteroid’s surface. It may be worth it for AstroForge to keep plugging away — platinum is worth ~$15k/pound on Earth.
What does my cat want? Several organizations are now using machine learning to decode animal communication, from crows to whales
One study found that female Zebra Finches prefer mates that sing like the birds they grew up near.
The Project Cetacean Translation Initiative (CETI) is using AI to identify whale vocalizations, and will soon use an underwater microphone to record more in Dominica.
The Earth Species Project is developing AI models in the hopes of having conversations with animals by mimicking their vocalizations.
We’re probably a long way off from knowing why my cat is meowing alone in the living room at 3am, but it’s still pretty cool.
UK-based Helixx is 3D-printing vehicles, starting with a run of 100 electric, single-seat vans in 2024, followed by a truck, a taxi, and a rickshaw.
The small van uses swappable batteries and has a central driving position, meaning it’ll work in left-hand and right-hand driving countries. Its body is made of five 3D-printed parts that click together, which Helix claims reduces the manufacturing process by up to 50%.
In theory, it’s a cheaper, more sustainable delivery solution that could work just about anywhere.
Portable Diagnostic Systems will be the newest narc in town when it launches its drug testing device next year.
It allows cops to quickly test drivers they suspect may be impaired for a number of substances taken over the past 24-72 hours using a saliva sample. This is a narrower window than a urine test, which can surface drugs taken over the past month.
PDS is hoping to launch with the ability to test for 30 drugs, including illegal substances and those prescription medications that warn you about not operating heavy machinery such as, you know, a car.
We’ve heard a lot about fake news over the last few years, but what about fake newscasters? Channel 1 expects to launch its global AI news network, replete with AI-generated anchors, in 2024.
“It’s even possible to create footage of events where cameras were not able to capture the action,” one of them says, comparing it to a courtroom sketch.
Channel 1 says its stories will come from actual news networks, freelancers, and public data. But if you’re worried AI news will make it easier for misinformation to spread, well… you’re not alone. Real human journalists think that, too.
As for us, we can’t stop thinking about Max Headroom.
HOT TAKES
Today, we laid out what we know so far about 2024.
We’ve got everything from Mickey Mouse to a moon landing and — sigh — even more Taylor Swift.
But we want to hear from you: What are your biggest predictions for 2024?