Happy New Years…Money And AI Never Sleep So Prepare For A Busy 2025

Happy new year to everyone…

It is quiet this morning in Coronado. Even more than most mornings.

Last night, Ellen, Rachel and I had an early dinner and champagne and retired to the media room. Max is in Lisbon, Portugal testing vape flavors and having a good time with his girlfriend Amy.

Ellen, Rachel and I spent a lot of time in our media room the last five evenings. I had the remote most of the time switching from YouTube to Netflix to Amazon and even HULU looking for fresh content. Ellen is not into watching movies she has seen before and my YouTube algo is very Howie and so one thing we did notice is that Amazon Prive Video has come a very long way in the last year offering a wiode range of partnerships and choices. We are only in inning 2 of streaming and Netflix is already a $380 billion company. I was just texting with my friend Matthew who is a producer at Amazon movies and told him about the improvements that I was noticing and he said a lot more to come.

Ellen and I really liked ‘Landman’, yet another Taylor Sheridan show.

We watched the ‘Avicii – I’m Tim’ documentary on Netflix which was excellent and of course terribly sad. I am embarrassed I had no idea who he was seeing how talented and popular he was and how much Max loves EDM. Ellen and Rachel are not as clueless to the world as me. It is a reminder of the silos we fall into and how big and small the world can be. I plan to listen to some of his music on the drive back to Phoenix today.

Another show we started watching through Amazon is ‘Generation War’, a German series with its own take of a group of friends as they fought for Germany in World War 2. It is intense, but excellent. Yet another reminder about the expanded world for storytellers and how early we are in the streaming era.

One AI story that already caught my eye in 2025 is the reimagining/reemergence of Britannica. You can ‘archive.ph’ the link to the story from The NY Times.

In the summer of 1982, I learned sales working for Britannica. Mike Lee was the head of sales in the Toronto office, a name that is etched in my head because he was just so good at his job and took it so seriously and believed in the product. I worked the phones and malls with this hilarious character Check Chan who was an incredible salesman. By osmosis I learned how to handle objections and close $2,000 book sales, which seemed an impossible task. The biggest objection at the time was from smart asses telling me they would wait for it on CD-ROM. It turns out the smartasses were right eventually, but in the era of AI, executives have figured out how to use chatbots to keep the company relevant and profitable.

It used to be that money never slept, but in 2025 it is money and AI that will not sleep. It is a combination that will create much market, work, labor, even geographic chaos and opportunity for the deepest of pockets and the smallest of wallets.

It is going to be a very busy January for me so I am getting right to work.