Episode 94: Apple's Disaster, Atlassian Crashes, Tesla's Struggles, Election Breakdown and Adir's New Voting Idea
The guys discuss the unfolding disasters at Apple, Atlassian's share price crash as it gives away AI, Tesla gets squeezed, the Liberals election calamity, and Adir's new voting system.
The Contrarians catchup
The guys discuss their love/hate relationships with sugar (and meat, in Adam’s case - he hasn’t had it in six years).
Adir said it’s “much, much easier for me to give other people advice than to take my own advice”, to which Adam said “that’s our whole show, really.”
When talking through how some Australians don’t fill in their voting sheets correctly, or even leave it blank, Adam said “I’ve been known to draw a cock and balls on mine.”
Adir ran a LinkedIn survey following last week’s question: would you pay 20% more for a flight where kids under 13 aren't permitted? 61% said “Hell no!”
In Japan, they’re running a lottery to decide who will get a Nintendo Switch 2 when it’s released and a staggering 2.2M people signed up.
Adir created a spreadsheet where he divides his day into 30-minute blocks, mapping each block to one of 20 categories to see how he’s spending his time. Some takeaways: zero time spent on his biceps, his time commitment to The Contrarians is exactly what you hear each episode, and he was shocked how much time is spent on life admin.
Australian election breakdown
Adir wants to talk about voting.
So, there are two types of numbers: ordinal (numbers specify the order or position of items in a list or sequence) and cardinal (numbers represent quantity or the number of elements in a set).
Adir: “First past the post says whoever's the most popular, they're going to be the elected representative. And preferential voting says whoever is the least hated, they're going to be elected because you can get 45% of the primary vote and not get across the line in Australia. And if the other 55% of the electorate just really doesn't want you eventually someone else is going to get the preferences and win. And the consequence of that is that it creates a much less polarised group of elected representatives in society.”
For our overseas audience, Anthony Albanese, the prime minister of Australia, won his re-election bid, and his Labor Party widened its majority in the House of Representatives.
Adam: “Let's go back to 2018, when this election was really lost, when Malcolm Turnbull was leader of the Liberal Party and Prime Minister of Australia and Peter Dutton challenged him and Scott Morrison got in because Dutton didn't have the numbers. That was the moment the Liberal Party went from being a semblance of the Liberal party to really ignoring 80% of people who would usually be vote for them.”
If you’re one of the many people who ask when Adir is going to be a politician, here’s the answer:
Adir: “Someone asked me, when are you going into politics? Because obviously I care a lot about this. And I've said before, I think it's probably the highest calling to go into politics. Do I want to be hated and abused and have an aggressive media and people saying nasty things about me to my kids?”
Tesla stuck in Valet Mode
Adam’s in the market for a new car and tested four brands: Mercedes-Benz EQB, BMW iX1, Tesla Model Y (despite Adir thinking Adam hated Tesla), and the BYD Sealion 7.
The guys discuss Tesla’s 26% share price drop YTD and whether there’s any truth to the rumours that they’re searching for a new CEO.
Adam: “Tesla's been squeezed at the high end from BMW, the Audis, the Porsches - all that stuff. And you see Volkswagen is now the number one selling EV in Europe. So they’re getting absolutely smashed by traditional car companies and then being smashed at the bottom end with BYD coming in with a $25,000 car.”
Apple’s stock has worms
Apple’s woes continue with its share price trading about 20% below its December peak, with a bit of help from Trump’s tariff announcements. The company is now worth a measly $3T.
Adam: “If you look at the issues I had with Apple a year ago, when I thought it was one of the most overpriced businesses I've ever seen - one was the whole services thing. The other thing is this is a company that has not released a product since the iPhone. So this is a company that is on a downward spiral.”
Adir: “Is there anyone doing a worse job of AI in Big Tech than Apple?”
Adam: “It is such an obvious long-term short because this is a company that is losing its powers. It's losing its value. It’s losing its cornered resource. This business was briefly the most valuable in the world. But like an empire, empires crumble and the Apple empire, in my view, is crumbling.”
Adir: “Do you think the religious zealotry surrounding Apple has diminished sufficiently for the price to plummet?”
Cloudy skies for Atlassian
Atlassian CEO Mike Cannon-Brookes failed to convince investors of his plan to lure customers to its cloud platform by making its AI assistant free, with an adverse reaction to the company’s quarterly earnings guidance shaving $15B off the company’s value.
Adir: “Well, one thing you can say about that is that it wasn't going well. Nobody says we've been charging $20 a month and way more people are paying that than we expected, so we're going to remove the price.”
Adir: “They have grown revenue 25% year to date. So that's a big number. And so this is what I would do on their $5B. They should generate $1B of profit on their $5B and tolerate a fall on revenue growth to 20%, which I think they could do. Then they'd be running $1B of profit on $5B of revenue - 40 on the rule of 40, at scale. Very unusual, still growing 20%.”
Five other stories worth following:
Warren Buffett — the Berkshire Hathaway CEO, world-famous investor, and card game enthusiast — who turns 95 in August, somehow shocked the business world with news that he’ll cede leadership of his obscenely successful firm to handpicked successor Greg Abel in 2026. If you’re worried about the future of Berkshire Hathaway and its $347.7B cash pile, don’t be.
Live Nation’s Q1 earnings show that live music is playing on — 74%, or $2.5B, of the company’s overall quarterly earnings came from concert revenue. While its ~$3.4B in revenue was down 11% from 2024, that still beat analyst estimates, and Live Nation said there are 60% more shows playing in stadiums than last year.
The Sean “Diddy” Combs trial begins. Jury selection will take place at a federal courthouse in Manhattan preceding the hip-hop mogul’s trial, which highlights claims made by four women that Combs abused them. He was arrested last September and charged with racketeering conspiracy, sex trafficking, and transportation to engage in prostitution.
President Trump authorised a tariff on movies made outside the US. The president said other countries offering filmmakers and studios incentives to make movies outside the US is a national security threat. Details of the plan have not yet been released.
If you’ve managed to snag a $75,000 ticket to the A-list museum fundraiser, the Met Gala, you’ll be expected to go viral in an outfit inspired by the theme, “Tailored for You,” which honours Black dandyism throughout American history. The co-chairs of Anna Wintour’s fashion blowout are Pharrell Williams, Colman Domingo, Lewis Hamilton, and A$AP Rocky, while LeBron James snagged the “honorary co-chair” title.