Episode 84: The World's Biggest Fast Food Chain, Uber's Uber Mistake?, The World's Greatest Game, Click & Fail, What Would You Do With $81T, Adam's Big Break
The guys chat about the world's largest fast food chain you've never heard of, did Uber make a monumental mistake selling its self-driving business, GoldenEye's history, and Adir's ecommerce fiasco.
The Contrarians catchup
Adam should’ve been heli-skiing (off-trail, downhill skiing or snowboarding where the skier reaches the top of the mountain by helicopter, instead of a ski lift) but instead is sitting in Royal Inland Hospitality in British Columbia, Canada, after breaking his leg and needing surgery!
Adam’s break was severe, but he refused to take analgesia because he didn’t want to be “dopey” (Adir’s word) for this podcast. Adam: “We've got 10,000s of listeners. We can't let them down. I'm not going to let a snapped leg stop The Contrarians - the audience demands it.”
In “a tale of how unexpectedly poor multi-channel c-commerce integration is in 2025”, Adir bought his son some ASICS tennis shoes through click and collect, that weren’t ready to click and collect when he was told they would be, but there happened to be the same pair in the back, which he had to pay for separately.
Adam and Adir called the permanent appointment of Matt Stanton as the CEO of Nine weeks ago, which was confirmed last week, and just wanted you to know you heard it here first.
Adir spent the morning with a Premier League club as part of Catapult meetings in London, but was more excited to see the offices of Take-Two Interactive, a video game maker.
The guys discuss a book about GoldenEye 007, a 1997 first-person shooter video game developed by Rare and published by Nintendo for the Nintendo 64, which was created by only eight people.
Adir’s latest book recommendation: ‘Essentially Mira: The Extraordinary Journey Behind Forest Essentials’, by Mira Kulkarni. Kulkarni is considered a farsighted leader in the beauty industry for creating a revolutionary new segment in the market.
The climate-loving founder and his private jet
Adam: “Have you been following Mike Cannon-Brookes’ private jet issue?”
Adir: “Ugh, I knew you were gonna raise this point.”
Mike Cannon-Brookes has sparked a media storm after jetting his family on his new $80M private jet despite being an avid climate campaigner. The Atlassian billionaire purchased the Bombardier 7500 jet following a recent divorce and admitted to a “deep internal conflict”.
Adir: “He talked about how guilty he feels about doing it. I think one of the most important things I've learned over the years is that guilt is a totally unproductive emotion. Like do something or don't do something. But don't feel bad about whatever it is that you're doing.”
Adam: “Mate, you can afford it. You’re worth $20B - buy a plane, we all would.”
Former Uber CEO thinks company “screwed up”
Travis Kalanick, the former CEO of Uber, believes the company’s decision to abandon its autonomous driving program was a mistake.
Travis: “Look, [new management] killed the autonomous car project we had going on. At the time, we were really only behind Waymo but probably catching up, and we were going to pass them in short order … I wasn’t running the company when that happened, but you know, you could say, ‘Wish we had an autonomous ride-sharing product right now. That would be great.’”
Adir: “The question should be asked about whether a founder that still has tons of stock in a company should be talking down that company from the sidelines and its CEO. And I think my view on that is no.”
Adam: “I think he's 100% right. This is classic founder versus manager mode. If you look at Dara as a manager, he's 100%. He's ticked every box. He's extracted every bit of profit out of this business. This is Travis taking a 20-30 year view of the business saying we need autonomous driving.”
The world's biggest fast food chain
Did you know the world’s biggest fast food chain is a Chinese brand specialising in ice cream and tea-based drinks? Mixue (pronounced me-shure) was founded in 1997, but didn’t start taking off until 2019, and is now in over 46,000 locations across Asia and Australia.
Mixue has a market cap of $14B, significantly lower than McDonald’s $230B, but has grown like wildfire because of its supply chain mastery, its mascot Snow King, and its really low franchise fees.
Adir: “I quite like the ice cream that these kind of Chinese or Taiwanese stores produce. Often they have this flavour called ‘milk flavour’ - it's like a more subtle version of vanilla.”
What would you do with $81T?
Citibank accidentally put $81T in a customer’s account when it meant to send only $280. The mistaken payment was reversed several hours later and reported to the Federal Reserve and Office of the Comptroller of the Currency as a “near miss.”
Adir: “It's very important in life that you control money and that money does not control you. People are much too fixated on money. It won't do anything near as much as being able to spend quality time with your family.”
Five other stories worth following:
Klarna, the BNPL giant, filed paperwork to go public on the New York Stock Exchange in what will be one of the most anticipated IPOs of the year, but they’ve made more news for how they use AI to replace staff. The company experiences 20% natural attrition per year, and those jobs are not refilled by humans. At Klarna’s peak, it had 5,000 employees. Now, it has about 3,500, and the CEO ultimately wants to get down to 2,000.
The stranded astronauts’ long, long time in space is almost over. A SpaceX Crew Dragon arrived at the International Space Station with two new NASA astronauts, a Japanese astronaut, and a Russian cosmonaut, clearing the way for Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams to head home, perhaps later this week.
Virgin Atlantic is partnering with startup Joby Aviation to bring air taxis to the UK. Customers will be able to book a seat in an all-electric Joby aircraft — which takes off vertically and can reach speeds up to 200mph while being 100x quieter than an airplane — through the Virgin Atlantic website and app.
Starbucks will pay $50M in damages to a delivery driver who sued after he “suffered severe burns, disfigurement, and debilitating nerve damage to his genitals” when an improperly secured lid caused hot drinks to spill on his lap.
The beleaguered ‘Snow White’ live-action adaptation will hit theaters on Friday: The film has been at the centre of the culture wars since 2022, when star Rachel Zegler first defended the progressive tone of the remake, leading to endless derogatory labels of “woke” from critics.