Hey besties,
Happy belated Internal Comms Day to all who celebrate. Now let’s group chat 👇
🍿 Grab the popcorn: OpenAI vs. Anthropic drama is officially better than Bravo. (Also, bless you comms teams.) This week’s edition: Sam Altman compared Anthropic’s Claude Mythos rollout to "building a bomb, then selling you a $100 million bomb shelter." He also suggested their "doomerism talk” contributed to the (horrible) attack on his home. Meanwhile, Anthropic quietly surpassed OpenAI in the secondary markets with a $1 trillion valuation.
🙏 Thank you, Eleanor: Axios Communicators writer Eleanor Hawkins is leaving the newsroom and heading back in-house. I believe no single person has been more influential in elevating the communications profession than Eleanor. You’re the best, and we’ll all be cheering you on for what's next.
🎭 Nothing in real: And I’m not talking about AI. Those fan accounts you see on social? Paid for by the brand. I wouldn’t be surprised if companies start hiring content creators to pose as employee for viral advocacy (especially if your CEO is bad on cam).
🎬 Weekend watch: I traded books for documentaries this week and these two are too good not to share:
The AI Doc: From the folks who brought you The Social Dilemma. Yes, I already know everything they talked about, and yes, it gets very dramatic halfway through (I almost turned it off). But I love the art, animation, and the director's hilarious reactions to the doomers vs. optimists. Plus a new camp: AI Apocaloptimist.
Unraveling the Dream: Revisits Brave New World novelist Aldous Huxley's psychedelic experiments and explains how our brain's resistance to atrophy creates the vision of the world we have.
💍 Just for fun: Tomorrow I celebrate 11 years of marriage. To throwback to how long ago 11 years was: this was the era of wedding hashtags (#bestthingsinlifeareferree) and my partner posted about our wedding on… wait for it… Facebook.
Chat soon,
Gab Ferree
Founder & Your Comms BFF, Off the Record
PS: Last week’s most-clicked was Carly Martinetti’s winning media pitch subject line formulas.
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