The cult of celebrity business leaders
The business news that matters.
Hello and welcome to the latest edition of Off to Lunch…
Tesla’s earnings call is scheduled for later today, with Elon Musk set to give a summary of what could be the company’s worst quarter in seven years. Not only are shares down over 40% this year, but slowing demand and poor sales have led to Tesla cutting prices across the world. Tesla also confirmed on Friday that it is recalling all its Cybertrucks due to a faulty accelerator pedal. Despite this, many people are taking the long view and backing the company’s leader.
While seemingly on a mission to become a polarising Bond villain doppelganger since purchasing Twitter (now X) two years ago, the release of his autobiography by celebrity biographer extraordinaire Walter Isaacson last year gave a look into the troubled past and mind of a visionary who’s on a mission to make his mark.
He is a celebrity in the business world and arguably one of the most well-known names on the planet. While you may scoff at someone watching Married at First Sight or Real Housewives of [insert name of fancy place here], we’re all a little guilty of subscribing to the cult of business leaders. Lapping up inspirational quotes, books and podcasts featuring figureheads in business is what offers inspiration and fuels growth. Hell, that’s what Business Leader is here for.
Musk has been accused of transphobia, spreading misinformation, antisemitism, bullying and much more, but what the man has achieved is undeniable. My family in rural Africa are able to get lightning-fast internet thanks to Starlink. He shook up an entire industry with SpaceX and is doing some fascinating work with brain implant disruptor Neuralink.
So, when the world is chastising Musk for Tesla’s performance later today, keep in mind one of the main things to come out of Isaacson’s aforementioned book, how Musk builds his companies. He encourages his employees to be “the algorithm” for problem-solving, telling them to:
Question every requirement
Delete any part or process you can
Simplify and optimise
Accelerate cycle time
Automate
Take the good with the bad indeed…
Podcast…
The new episode of our Business Leader podcast looks at UK fintech Tide. In 2018 its founder, George Bevis, stood aside as chief executive and was succeeded by Oliver Prill. Since then, Tide has grown rapidly and transformed from a promising financial technology start-up to a company whose online banking services are used by one in 10 small and medium-sized businesses in the UK.
Prill discusses the challenges of becoming chief executive, how to disrupt the financial services industry and why regulators may hold back innovation in the UK.
You can listen to the episode on Substack here, Spotify here and Apple here
Other stories that matter…
1. The FTSE 100 has reached a new record closing price. A weak pound and easing tensions in the Middle East have been cited as reasons for the good performance of the collection of the UK's biggest publicly listed companies. You can read more here
2. As the Issa brothers’ rumoured behind-the-scenes rift continues, Asda’s CFO has resoundingly denied that the supermarket is for sale. Michael Gleeson said that the billionaire brothers’ track record was “one of growth and investing for the long run”. You can read more here
3. CEO pay is in the spotlight again. Pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca’s CEO Pascal Soirot took home £17.2m and is in line for another pay bump despite a profit slump and lower-than-expected earnings. You can read more here
4. Wired has looked into the decline of the plant-based meat market. High prices and products “yet to meet their expectations on taste and texture“ are among the reasons for the drop. You can read the full piece here
5. THG founder, CEO and fervent outspoken LinkedIn-er Matthew Moulding has posted a poignant summary of why most advice needs to be taken with a pinch of salt. Comparing the delivery of the company’s Q1 2024 results to this time last year, Moulding jokes that if the advice was the same, today he’d have to sell the world's biggest Nutrition brand, Myprotein. You can read the post here
And finally…
The Oracle of Omaha Warren Buffett credits many of his great business decisions to his insatiable reading habit, while Bill Gates reads 50 books a year. It’s estimated that more than 660 million books are sold in the UK every year and yet an anti-trust court case in the US has given us an inside look into the publishing industry, showing it in a way we’ve never seen it before.
After reading transcripts from the trial, writer Elle Griffin gave an overview of what she learned:
The ‘big five’ publishing houses spend most of their money on book advances for big celebrities like Britney Spears and franchise authors like James Patterson and this is the bulk of their business. They also sell a lot of Bibles, repeat best sellers like Lord of the Rings, and children’s books like The Very Hungry Caterpillar.
These two market categories (celebrity books and repeat bestsellers from the backlist) make up the entirety of the publishing industry and even fund their vanity project: publishing all the rest of the books we think about when we think about book publishing (which make no money at all and typically sell less than 1,000 copies).
You can read more and subscribe to her newsletter The Elysian here
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